


Supine and Cold

by proser132



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Romance, Supernatural/Horror, Weird Alchemy, child!OFC, former!Roy Mustang/OFC
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-02-20
Updated: 2012-11-30
Packaged: 2017-11-19 21:33:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 63,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proser132/pseuds/proser132
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed doesn't know why he had left, much less why he's come back. Roy doesn't know how to go on, alone with a seven year old who knows too much. If they can't find the answers in themselves, they'll have to look in each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

Sutra One: _Kaimu_  


* * *

The moonlight cascaded down the tangled sheets like water, pouring from the flung-wide windows which hovered on the wall, uncertain of their welcome. Light flowed around the two dark figures in the room; the little girl with black hair, a pool of ink in the pool of moonlight, and her father, who sat with her head in his lap as his shoulders shook.

She was curled up kittenishly around his knee, floating in the cool wash of light as if she was a doll, head resting delicately on the man's knee; when her eyes were open, they glittered a beautiful, sharp hazel, so bright it was more often called yellow. She was no more than six, no less than five; a terrible age to lose a mother.

The man's hand rested atop her dark hair, paler still than the moonlight, with long and tapered fingers that breathed delicacy and a sort of honed danger that few rarely saw. The fingers, so used to bringing pain and destruction, now trembled slightly in suppressed pain and grief, the slim tips swirling through the silky black strands of her hair that so matched his own. Black eyes, set in a handsome face, stared out the window unseeingly, so full of shadows and the reflections of moonlight's reflections that they were both deep and glassy; a scrying mirror, emptied of answers and full of dead ends.

Roy Mustang was not a man who cried by nature; people often told him that his masks hid who he truly was, showing only that he was Lieutenant-General Mustang, not a person underneath. But that was where they were blind ( _And where_ she _had been gifted with unusual sight_ , he thought, the words rolling across his mind in a black, rot-filled wave of grief). He _was_ cold, he _was_ calculating, he _was_ a bast-

No, that memory hurt too, though only slightly less than now; the only thing to do was avoid it.

But hadn't he spent his life doing that? Avoiding things that brought him pain, instead of facing them down; wasn't that his plan B? Couldn't he get over that, just once?

But the idea of facing that and _this_ , both, at the _same time_ , was too much. So, he sat, facing _this_ instead of that, his shoulders shaking just the slightest bit as, down the face of the man who _did not cry_ , tears dropped to ripple the surface of the moonlight.

This continued for an hour – him, sitting silently, his daughter's head in his lap, the moon falling lower and flooding the room ever higher with more and more light. When they stopped (not that he'd ever admit to having them) he looked at his daughter, because he needed to _see_ her.

She had her mother's facial structure, but his nose; her mother's eyes, her father's hair. Her mother's small frame, but her father's elongated limbs; she wasn't tall by any measure, but she had an undeniable grace that, more than likely, she would lose when she hit her adolescence. She would regain it though, and be absolutely stunning. With her yellow-bronze-green eyes closed, though, she didn't remind him as much of her mother, and he needed that.

They had found out in the afternoon – his daughter had come home from morning kindergärten to an empty house. Unusual, but that meant that Momma was outside in the back yard, right?

But her mom hadn't been there, either.

Typically, her mother came over from the shop to pick her up, but there was no one there. So, little face scrunched up and schoolbag in hand, she walked over to her Momma's work. She wasn't there either. One of her Momma's co-workers found his number and called him, so he had left work early (Hawkeye, for once, not saying a word) and went to the shop, picking up his daughter. They went home to wait for her.

She never came back.

A police officer showed up around nine, knocking sharply on the door. When Roy opened it, his worst fears were confirmed.

'Sir,' the police officer began, 'I am terribly sorry to have to deliver this news...' the worst part was that he looked genuinely sorry. There was no one to rage at, no one to burn to a crisp; just this awful, awful _pity_. Roy listened in torn, broken silence as the police officer told him that his wife, Mrs. Elena Mustang, had been hit by a car early this morning as she had crossed the street on her way to her workplace. His heart beat in arrhythmic patterns, skipping beats or adding some; he managed to hold eye contact, but had to look away when the police officer said it had taken them a while to identify her. He knew what that meant; there hadn't been much to go on in the first place.

It felt like forever, but the officer finally left, and Roy locked the door behind the man and turned away, gathering his daughter to himself.

On his knee, the real movement of his daughter broke through the memory, and he smiled softly at her as she sat up, small hands rubbing bits of sleep from her eyes.

'Papa?' she asked, looking up at him blearily. In the tides of light that pulsed around them, her eyes lost the green and the brown; now, they peered up at him pure gold, and for a moment he saw another's eyes. 'You weren't sleeping,' she pouted, which brought him back.

'No,' he agreed, pleased to find that his voice still worked. He picked her up, her arms wrapping around his neck and laying back. He turned on his side, so that she was curled up against his stomach. 'But I'll go to sleep if _you_ go to sleep.'

'No fair!' she scolded, her forefinger tapping him on the nose. 'That's what you said last time!'

'I promise,' he said, nudging her with his nose. She smiled and closed her eyes. A few minutes later, Roy could swear she said something. 'What?' he asked gently.

'...I s'id, P'pa 'ill ne'er leave me, righ'?' she repeated sleepily. Her voice, so quiet and exhausted, broke his heart again.

'Of course, Sophie,' he murmured, wrapping his arms tighter around her. 'I'll never leave you.'

* * *

Here, the moonlight was less of a cascade and more of a typhoon, whipped into movement by the wind and the surf, becoming another force of nature that battled against Ed, snatching at his skin and eyes with blades of sand. No one who was sane would be out in this storm; as a rule, wind-storms didn't strike with this ferocity along the Maine coast. But here it was, and here _he_ was, and that meant that he was either insane or up to something.

It was probably both.

Ed scowled at the clear sky, blinking rapidly to fend off the wind, screwing up his courage. There was nothing for him here, nothing that could tie him to Earth; everything that mattered was at home, in Amestris. Winry and Al, Granny Pinako, Hawkeye and Havoc and Breda and Fuery and Falman and Mustang, Sensei and that was what was left. And there was no way back. He knew. He'd been searching for fourteen years.

He had turned thirty a few months ago. Thirty! How many times had he thought, back in that desperate race for the Philosopher's Stone, that he'd be lucky to see twenty? And at home, everyone who mattered would grow old, never knowing what happened to him, he never knowing what happened to them, and he couldn't face that. So, now to plan B.

The theory went, as long as he was alive here, he couldn't go home. So, all he had to do was kick the bucket, and he'd be sent home like a shot. And, if it didn't work, he was dead, and he figured that dead people had to be able to transcend worlds and Gates, Heaven or no, and he'd be able to see everyone a last time.

So he battled with the sand and the wind and the moonlight, and old friend's faces floating around him, urging him on.

Finally, he stood on the crest of a stone, the arcing blackness hovering over the Atlantic as the waters and the moon crashed down on his shoulders. He squared them, throwing his head back, baring his throat to the moonlight and the sea as he frowned at the sky. 'There is nothing more you can take from me,' he whispered to the full moon, his instinct reminding him that the sphere was not all that it appeared to be.

Amestris and Earth had opposite moon cycles – when the moon in Amestris was waxing, the moon on earth was waning. And the full moon almost never coincided.

He'd had to use his memory, picking through nights fourteen years ago and times and ages; finally, he had managed to predict when the next full moon would be that would be at the same time as Amestris'. He felt that if there was a corporeal connection between the two worlds – something he could almost touch, almost feel – then he'd have a better shot at making it home. Making this full moon not a moon, but a Gate.

'May the Gate have mercy,' he murmured, a forlorn sound amid the screech and scream of the blades of wind and scythes of moonlight.

And he leapt.

The night was suspended for a second, the darkness above and the whiteness below, with spots of powerful silver slicing into his skin, and Ed felt that he had been inescapably _wrong_.

There was terror in that moment – a moment of doubt that he would see home, a certainty that he had fucked up, and just before it all went black, he thought: _Mustang would have lectured me for this_...

* * *

When Ed blinked open his eyes, it was to bright sunlight. A stick was poking him in the back, and a fly was crawling on his cheek. He swept the insect away, sitting up and shielding his eyes from the light; he made a mental note to tell the afterlife to work on the whole 'arrival' bit.

He laughed lightly under his breath; turns out he had been wrong his entire life. Turned out there _was_ a heaven.

...Only, his image of heaven did not include massive amounts of pain, that struck right about... oh, right about _now_.

He curled up, clutching his head between his knees; god, this hurt. He felt like he'd been smashed against rocks repeatedly, and caught the flu, and was being stabbed with red-hot needles. Fuck the afterlife, this was _hell_ and he was going to pay dearly –

'Are you 'kay?'

He moved abruptly, wincing at the fresh bout of pain as he whirled about to face a young girl.

She was dressed in school clothes, a blue, knee-length skirt and matching shirt; she had a large gardener's hat on, which cast her face in shadow. She couldn't have been more than six, and looked oddly familiar, with her long, jet black hair; he couldn't see her face clearly, though, so he chalked up the familiarity to hallucination.

'I'm... I'm alright,' he said warily, the pain subsiding very slightly. Where had she come from?

'That's good!' She smiled sunnily, tilting her head back. Ed could see her face now; high cheekbones barely covered with puppy fat, a mouth meant for smiling, and burnished hazel eyes that spoke more of gold than any other colour. 'So...' She began, fidgeting. 'Why are you in our backyard?'

_Backyard_? He thought dazedly, and he toppled backward. _There's no way – I can't – then, if I'm not dead..._

_I'm home._

'Oh no! Are you 'kay? What's wrong?' She dashed over and knelt by his head, staring at him. Her tiny hands reached out to his forehead, as if taking a temperature; she pulled back, confused looking. 'You _look_ 'kay...'

'I'm – I'm fine,' Edward said, trying to get things straight in his head. 'Where are we?'

The little girl gave him an odd look. 'You're in Central, silly!' she laughed, and _that_ sounded familiar, too. 'In Amestris!' She gave him another look. 'Are you a bum?' she asked suspiciously.

'No,' he laughed, 'just a little lost.'

She sat back, surprised. 'You laugh like my Momma,' she said, and Edward blinked to hear a tone of wistfulness in her voice. She was too young to sound so old, but she smiled and the thought of age was dispelled. She was a child again, and she stood up, dusting off her knees. 'Let me go get my Papa!' she said cheerfully. 'He knows everything there is to know, I think, and if you're lost, I think you need someone like that! Wait here, 'kay?'

And with that, she sped off before Edward could protest, shouting, 'Papa, Papa! Come look at what I found!'

Ed let his head fall into his hand. There was the distant sound of a response; it was likely that whoever it was would recognise him, which was either a good thing, or a bad thing. 'Shit,' he muttered under his breath.

'I'm coming, Sophie, I'm coming...' A voice said to the little girl's shouts, and Ed scrambled to his feet, shock making his heart thump a mile a minute.

'No way...' he whispered under his breath.

'What did you find, Sophie?' Roy Mustang asked, stepping out of the house – and freezing.

'See, Papa?' Sophie giggled. 'He says he's lost!'

Roy only stared at Ed, eyes wide and shocked; Ed's breath had stuttered to halt in his chest. He had never expected – never imagined...

The years had been good to Roy. He look barely a day over thirty, his black hair falling to feather the outlines of his face; pale skin still showed few lines, and his black eyes bore into Ed's with an intense sort of scrutiny Ed had never felt – either here or on Earth.

He knew what Roy was seeing – an much taller Ed (which meant that he was pushing five-seven), hair untied and wild down past his waist, a waistcoat, trousers, a white shirt and deer-brown coat. It was a typical ensemble, but odd because Ed was wearing it. Roy himself was dressed to go to work – new stars on his coat declared him a Lieutenant General, quite a leap, even in fourteen years.

'Papa?' Sophie asked, breaking the spell. Roy looked down at his daughter, and Ed watched as his face fell into unfamiliar expressions; tenderness, a little bit of nervousness, and the sort of pride that came from loving a child.

'Sophie,' He said, 'Your bus will be here in a few minutes. Don't you think you should go wait for it?'

'No,' Sophie replied frankly. Ed fought down a grin; kid after his own heart, defying Roy at every chance she could. Roy smiled gently.

'Isn't today show and tell, though?' he asked, eyebrow raised. 'I thought you wanted to show that pretty rock Uncle Al sent you from Risembool?'

Ed's heart stuttered to a stop in his chest. _Uncle Al?_ His mind repeated blankly.

Grumbling and muttering under her breath, Sophie let herself be chivvied gently into the house. Ed stood awkwardly for a moment, uncertain of what to do; Roy turned and shot him a smile, his mouth held tight in the lines of the expression he was trying to hold. 'Come in,' He said, and it was in a pleasant tone that Ed suspected was more for Sophie than for him. He nodded and followed the taller man and his daughter inside, feeling shaky.

He stepped into the house, breathing oddly; Roy saw his daughter off at the door (tactfully ignoring her irritated mumblings), and then shut it. Edward tensed.

Roy turned around slowly, and Ed could see that his shoulders were shaking despite Roy's rigid control. The man looked back at Ed, eyes blank; when they narrowed in cautious anger, Ed wanted to flinch away.

'If this is some sort of a sick joke,' Roy said, and the sibilant hiss echoed down the hall with a terrifyingly hollow sound, 'then I hope you like fire.'

'What?' Ed asked, blinking. He took a step back. 'I – no! No, I'm Edward – '

'And I should believe you, why?' Roy asked, and Ed noticed vaguely that not only was Roy far angrier than Ed had ever seen him, he was far angrier than the situation called for. But the tremors still shook his shoulders, and there was an odd light in his eyes that made Ed nervous.

_Damn_ , Ed thought. A pissed off Flame Alchemist was _not_ what he wanted to deal with the first day home. He shook the thought away with a toss of his shoulders, standing as tall as he could (which was considerably taller than when Roy had seen him last) and braced his hands on his hips.

'My name,' he enunciated clearly, 'is Edward Elric, former Fullmetal Alchemist. I was one of your subordinates from the time I was twelve to when I was sixteen; my brother's name is Alphonse Elric, and before I...' here he paused, before mustering up the courage to continue, '...left, he was still in his fucking suit of armour. Now, before you burn me to crisp, let me ask one thing: did my brother get his body back?'

Roy was silent, watching him with wary eyes. Edward felt a flare of fury, blooming up from the base of his spine and setting him afire in anger, and he stalked over, bunching the cloth of Roy's jacket in his hands and snarling, 'Answer me, damn you! What the _fuck_ happened to my brother? Why did you call him _Uncle Al_ to your kid?'

'It's really you...' Roy managed, and the look in his eyes would have broken Ed's heart, if he wasn't so pissed.

'Of _course_ it's fucking me, you bastard!' Ed exclaimed. He pushed Roy away from him, disgusted and angry; his glare would have been enough to melt Drachma's coldest regions. 'What happened to my brother?'

'He's – he's fine,' Roy gasped out, the shaking from his shoulders migrated into his voice. He looked as if his entire world's foundations had been kicked over like sand, and Ed couldn't bring himself to care. 'He got his body back when you disappeared, and lives in Risembool with his wife, Winry.'

Ed did a double take. 'He _married_? _**Winry**_?'

'Yes,' Roy answered. 'Nine years, now. He has a daughter and a son – '

'Kids...' Ed whispered, turning away from Roy. All of his anger drained away, only to be replaced by a sort of relief; he turned back, suddenly curious. 'What about you? Where's your wife?'

Roy flinched, and Ed blinked. 'Touchy subject, or – '

'She died. Yesterday.'

Ed snapped his mouth shut, unable to look at the grief on Roy's face and so looking away. 'I... I'm sorry,' Ed murmured, and he was surprised to find that he truly was. And how embarrassed at how truly tactless he was capable of being.

A silence descended on them, falling swiftly from the rafters of the house like a snow flurry and leaving behind a sort of desolate quiet that allowed nothing to be said.

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

**Sutra Two: Konton**

* * *

Roy finally sighed, and with that expelling of breath, all of his anger, and worry, and grief dissipated, leaving him empty. It was the sort of thing Elena had taught him to do; instead of becoming truly masked, he just became empty. 'Don't apologise,' he said, surprised that he meant it. 'It's not your fault. Come on, I need some coffee, or something. Today is going to be one of the longest days of my life.'

Edward laughed, and that sound rang through Roy's head, leaving him feeling more hollow and, in a rueful sort of paradox, more full than he had felt in fourteen years.

'What year is it?' Ed asked, following Roy easily; he had never moved that easily, never in all the years Roy had known him. He had been graceful, yes; but there was movement, and there was dancing, and with every step it was as if Ed was dancing. Not altogether an unpleasant image, but certainly an odd one; the Edward Roy had once known didn't have time for such frivolities, much less the experience to act in such a way unconsciously.

Wherever Edward had gone, it had done wonders for him.

Roy couldn't stop sneaking glances, answering, 'It's 1928,' almost without noticing. How he was so calm, he didn't know; to be honest, right now he should be freaking out in a most un-Mustang-like manner, or at least breaking down in a fit brought on by too many shocks in too few days. First Elena, and –

The thought struck him in the gut, and he pushed it away with an internal grimace. He was making coffee, that was all, and talking to Edward, nothing more. No need to think of Elena, with her beautiful hazel eyes and long, silky blonde hair, pale skin and delicate bones.

No, no need to think of Elena at all.

'Have a seat,' he said, gesturing to one of the three chairs set at the table.

Edward still stood, looking uncomfortable. 'Look, if it's a bad time...'

_That_ made Roy laugh. 'Edward,' he said, turning around to face the man, 'You just appeared out of nowhere in my backyard after disappearing for fourteen years. There's no such thing as a bad time.' Seeing that Edward was still uneasy, he decided to offer a compromise. 'Here, tell me everything that happened wherever the hell you were, and I'll buy you a train ticket to Risembool, where Al may or may not have a heart attack to see you standing on his front step.'

Ed nodded, the tension seeping out his shoulders, and he sat down hard in the left most seat as Roy began to make the coffee. Something in Roy's throat constricted at the sight; for a few seconds, Edward wasn't sitting there.

_'Roy!' Her laughter tinkled around the kitchen, little Sophie still in diapers and clinging to her long, slender leg. 'Look at this mess!'_

_Roy blinked and looked around. When had the flour exploded all over the room? He hadn't noticed. He smiled sheepishly down at the plate he held, stacked high with perfectly round pancakes. 'I – '_

_'It doesn't matter,' Elena sighed, taking the plate from him with a wink. 'As long as we have the good maple syrup.'_

The memory faded away, slipping into the recesses of his mind, and Roy found that he was shaking again. He pushed it aside and finished putting coffee grounds in the filter, trying to ignore Edward's eyes on his back. So what if he had happened to sit in Elena's chair? It wasn't as if she was here to complain.

The coarse thought grated on his mind, a sharp pain in his stomach. She'd never complain again – never laugh, never cry, never smile –

No, no use thinking these thoughts. Empty, empty, empty...

This Roy repeated, over and over, until the words became an unbreakable chain of syllables in his mind. He turned around and sat down in the rightmost chair, easily letting a smile slip onto his lips. 'So,' he asked, and Edward's eyebrow rose at his cheerful voice, 'Where have you been lately?'

'Lately?' Edward laughed, and it was the chuckle of a much older man – one who had lived lives worth of adventure in a very small period of time. It made Roy weary just hearing it – and sorrowful, because Sophie was right; it sounded like Elena's laugh. _Empty, empty, empty..._ 'Everywhere under the sun. And I mean _everywhere_.'

'Oh?' Roy asked as the pot began to burble. 'Should I take that as an insinuation that you have stories to tell?'

'Stories upon stories,' Edward smiled. 'Enough to fill the Library of Alexandria.'

'The what?' Roy asked, eyebrow rising. Ed shook his head ruefully, an odd expression flitting across his features.

'Never mind,' he said, his normal expression returning in the blink of an eye; as Roy hadn't blinked, he hadn't missed it. The expression was complex and full of underlying meaning, too many core emotions blended together to be distinguished easily, and it disturbed Roy. Once upon a time, everything about Edward had been black and white. 'You wouldn't really get it even if I told you.'

'Why not?' Roy asked, the coffee's burbling dying down completely. It was ready for them, yet neither man moved.

'Because I'd have to explain an entire world's history to make it make sense,' Edward sighed. 'Suffice it to say, it was an old, old library.' Roy nodded and stood to pour the coffee. Carefully, he selected two cups with no memories attached to them, a pair of off-white, thick mugs – stalwart and hardy. He poured the coffee in, black, and handed a mug to Edward.

'So, what can you tell me?' Roy asked. He took a sip from the coffee as he sat; it wasn't too strong, but neither was it a lightweight coffee. Edward drank it as if it was water, face showing no discomfort at the flavour. 'Surely there have to be some stories that don't require a history lesson.'

Ed cracked a smile at that, but it was a secretive smile, almost a smirk. 'I'd love to,' he said, 'but time flies when you're catching up with old friends.' he gestured with his mug to the clock on the wall behind Roy, and the older man swore quite fluently as he realised that he had to be late for work. Edward laughed, a distinctly smug sound, as if pleased that Roy had finally gotten to the point where he was willing to swear; something that he had always before refrained from doing.

Which he still refrained from doing.

But he was home, and in the company of old friends. He could relax here, surely?

_Empty, empty, empty..._

* * *

'I don't dare look at the clock,' Roy announced, standing and placing his mug in the sink. Ed swallowed back the rest of his coffee and did the same. A part of him knew what came next, and welcomed it; another dreaded it with the part of his being not already claimed. However, a third part was just pleased that he wasn't freaking out over being home, which, really, he should be doing. Roy looked at him, and that shock of seeing a familiar face struck his gut again; it made him smile, something that he had been doing a lot today. 'You should come into work with me,' Roy said. 'I can get your ticket there, and you can see everyone.'

A thought hit Ed, and he realised how much he blanched when Roy looked over at him, concerned-looking. 'Edward, is there something the matter?'

'Shit,' Ed muttered. 'What the hell do I tell them that won't get me shot?'

Roy blinked, and then something miraculous happened.

Roy had laughed multiple times today, a sort of half-done mirth that seemed to suffice for the moment. But this – this was true mirth, an effervescence that bubbled up from a spring Ed had never knew to exist inside Roy. The older man threw back his head and laughed, laughed until Ed was caught up in it and laughing, too.

'I have no idea,' Roy said, once the laughter had died down to a manageable level. 'You'll think of something; you're good at improvising.'

'You could say that,' Ed muttered, but it was in good-humour. He ran his hand through his hair and winced as one of the tangles caught in the joints of his automail. 'Look, give me five minutes in the bathroom, I'll be ready to go. I'll either have something to say or a will written up.'

Roy laughed again, and Ed noticed the clear difference between his real laughter and the sort of vague mirth he gave to things he heard that weren't important. To Ed's surprise and pleasure, it was the former, not the latter. 'Go ahead. Five more minutes won't make Hawkeye's wrath any worse. I think.'

Ed smiled, taking notice of the titbit of information. So, Hawkeye was still around. That was good; there was someone around to make the lazy bastard work. He followed Roy's quick, concise directions, finding the downstairs bathroom without trouble and shutting the door behind him.

Where he proceeded to release a shuddering sigh and sink to the floor.

_Damn,_ if today wasn't confusing. And awkward. And...

'Well, shit,' Ed murmured, before pulling himself to his feet and going to the sink.

Alright, so his plan hadn't been well thought out. He had nothing with him but the clothes on his back, which, despite the numerous deep pockets, didn't have much. Inside the pockets were an assortment of items that held sentimental value, but nothing that was actually _useful_ ; two note-books, wrapped in plastic, full of notes from his travels; some trinkets, given to him by friends in that other world; a small but thick 15x15cm sketchbook, filled with drawings of Earth. But other than that, he was empty-handed. Which meant no comb, no nothing.

He winced as he looked in the mirror, the tangled mass of blond hair seemingly cackling at him from the reflection; using his flesh hand, he ran his fingers through the worst of it, spying a small dish of elastics as he did so. Once his hair was at a manageable state (if embarrassingly long; he'd never really gotten around to anything more than trimming it on Earth), he braided it quickly, snapping a red elastic around the end. It fell to his waist when he was done, which was something that he'd need to fix as soon as possible. He had shaved last night in the hotel in Maine, so no worries there; he looked a little tired, but some cold water took care of that.

He pulled his pocket watch out of his coat. It was not the same pocket watch that he had arrived on Earth with; that one had been lost a _long_ time ago. But it was silver, elegantly wrought with fine etchings that marked it the work of one of the finest watchmakers in Brussels. Another memory that could be closed away soon; but Ed wouldn't. He had learned his lesson about trying to leave his past behind; in fact, he had spent the last fourteen years trying to break one of his own cardinal rules.

_You can't go back. Not ever._

_Remember Oct. 3._

And he had. People on Earth thought it was his birthday, not knowing that he was actually born in January; none of them had known why he would disappear that October day, every year, instead of celebrating with them and had eventually chalked it up to eccentric habit. He had spent that day once a year remembering, instead of moving forward. Every other day of the year he could afford to be unconquerable and unstoppable; it was the day he would refuel on memories before continuing to the next adventure, the next goal, the next step.

The watch hands read 8:49, and Ed winced. Roy's ass was in jeopardy; it seemed it was time to save it yet again.

Smirking at the thought, he opened the door to the bathroom and walked down the hall. Roy smiled at him when he emerged, waiting near the door. 'You look much better,' Roy commented as they left the house. 'Much less like a drowned rat.'

Ed scowled. 'Shut up,' he muttered, but he blinked as he realised that all of the animosity that had once flooded his voice when he spoke to Roy was gone. Even if he was certain there was a height comment hidden in Roy's jab. He would have smiled if he wasn't so startled; some things never changed, not even if it had been over a decade, a world had separated them, and Ed had gained something like nine inches.

He followed Roy to a car, where he clambered into the passenger seat as Roy started it. He pulled his braid over his shoulder so that he wouldn't end up sitting on it; Roy glanced over and gave him an inscrutable look as he started the engine.

'What?' Ed asked defensively.

'Have you cut your hair at all since you left?' Roy asked, amused.

Ed noticed that they both danced around the circumstances of his 'leaving', which was a small mercy he was thankful for; it wasn't something he wanted to go into, not now, not so soon. Maybe not ever, if he was lucky.

And very soon, he'd get to see Al. Plenty to be cheerful about, so let the past be past.

The irony was _killing_ him.

'Other than trims?' Ed laughed. 'Not a bit. This is what happens when someone can't find a decent barber on the planet.' He laughed as he gestured to his too-long braid. 'It's come in handy once or twice.' Ed blinked. 'Well, actually, it's gotten me in more fights than it's gotten me out of tight spots, but...'

'What does that mean?' Roy asked as he pulled out onto the road, giving Ed a curious look out the corner of his eyes. Ed blushed, not altogether the reaction he meant to have.

…Though, that statement suggested that Ed had a plan in the first place.

'Well…' his blush deepened. 'It may have led several older men to mistake me for a woman... which... well, seemed to lead them to believe that I was a good person to hit on.'

The laughter that erupted from Roy made Ed do multiple things – be annoyed; blush harder; and grin. All of which were sort of contradicting, at the moment.

'Any example you'd like to share?' Roy cajoled, still chuckling. Ed shook his head in exasperation, but hummed an assent. Roy, apparently, would always be curious.

'Erm... well, let's see,' Edward pretended to think. He already knew the story to tell, the one most likely to make Roy laugh. Which was a curious thought, all on its own. 'One time I was in a bar in Belgium – '

'All the good stories start in bars,' Roy commented, giving only a mildly curious look to the name of the country, and Ed laughed. He hadn't laughed this much in years.

'Yeah, yeah, you'd know, wouldn't you?' Ed mock glared at Roy, who just smiled as he pulled to a stop at a red light. 'Anyway, I stopped in with a friend of mine, Vinny. You know the type, loud, boisterous, and only gets more so as the night goes on?' Roy nodded and eased the gas as the light turned green, making a left turn. 'Well, turned out he had another friend who was at the bar that night. An awful lot like Vinny, just a little taller, a little skinnier, and not as good at holding his alcohol. He knew full well at the beginning of the night that I was a guy, but it seemed that with every beer he downed, his memory got a little worse. So around, oh, eleven, he turns to me and says, "You have got to be the hottest chick in this whole damn place."'

'Just right out like that?' Roy blinked; apparently that sort of forwardness wasn't the norm in Amestris, Ed noted. Excellent.

'Right out like that. Then, before I can move – and I'm pretty fast, so this is saying something – he slips his arm behind me and gropes my ass.'

Roy's mouth dropped.

'So,' Ed finished, pleased with his tale (and Roy's reaction, which was quite candidly priceless), 'I did what any self-respecting man-cum-woman would have done.'

'Which was?' Roy asked, recovered enough to stop at a stop sign and let the oncoming traffic go by.

'Beat the shit out of him, brought him home, cleaned him up, and sent him on his way,' Ed said, glossing it over. No reason for Roy to know everything, he reasoned.

'I was right.'

'Hm?' Ed made a questioning noise; a talent he'd had since he was a kid, being able to communicate with the most basic of noises.

'All the good stories start in bars,' Roy repeated.

Ed leaned back in his seat and laughed, Roy smiling like Ed couldn't remember him ever having done before. Roy turned into one of the parking lots near Central Command, and turned off the engine; as Ed reached for the door-handle, Roy laid a hand on his shoulder.

'Ed, does your coat have a hood?' he asked. Ed understood in an instant, and was grateful for Roy's foresight; if anyone outside of the original team saw him, it could have enormous repercussions. He didn't know what his official status with the military was, but he was sure it wasn't good.

'Yeah,' He said, and flipped it up, tucking his long braid in his jacket. 'What's my listing?'

Roy's eyes hardened, and for a split second, Ed saw the knuckles of his left hand whiten on the steering wheel. The hand on his shoulder was curiously relaxed in comparison, and Ed watched the Adam's apple on Roy's neck bob as he swallowed noiselessly.

'KIA.'

Ed winced; shit. When Al heard he was good and alive, he was going to have far more than the military to deal with. A pissed off Al was a scary Al, and finding that your long-believed-to-be-dead brother was alive and well was bound to piss anyone off. Al _especially_.

'But there wasn't a body to recover,' Ed reasoned. 'I took my body with me. So they couldn't have –'

'They deemed that the amount of blood at the scene was enough to classify you dead. They didn't know that Al had been there; we got him off the premises long before the military showed up.'

It was too close to a subject neither of them wanted to broach; too close to pain, too soon, too late. So they did what they had always done: closed themselves off.

Ed made sure his coat was secured before opening the door, stepping out and standing straight. Roy was out of the car with a quick, lithe movement, turning with his momentum to face Ed. He smiled, though lines of stress bracketed his mouth. Something in Ed wanted to make him laugh, do something, anything to erase that smile that meant so little.

'Time to face the music,' Ed muttered ruefully, and the two of them set off for the steps of Central Command.

* * *

 


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

**Sutra 3: Inochi**   


* * *

Roy fell into step beside Ed, looking over and deciding that if he wasn't Roy Mustang, it would be impossible to tell that Ed was underneath that coat. To him, the Elrics were intrinsically recognisable, almost as if the sight of them was so wholly unique that he could recognise them amid a thousand other sandy and blond haired men, even if all of those men had silver and gold eyes. It was in the way they held themselves, and even if Ed was more graceful, he still walked with the insouciant slouch that marked him out as Edward Elric to Roy.

'I look alright, then?' Ed asked, keeping his sight ahead, but there was no mistaking the smirking note in his voice. Roy frowned; he'd have to be more discreet.

Wait. About _what_?

He would have attempted to puzzle the above statement out, but he realised Edward was waiting for an answer. 'Can't tell it's you,' Roy said, his voice falling into the calm, cool tones he used at work.

Ed flicked his head to the side, a curious look flooding his eyes; Roy staunchly ignored it. They mounted the white, shining steps of Central Command in silence, and Roy tried to collect his mind. Regardless of whatever had happened in the past days – here, his throat caught, but he ignored that, too – he had to maintain an image at work, because he still had a goal to look forward to. If anything, working through the loss of his wife would _improve_ his image in the eyes of his superiors.

_Empty, empty, empty..._

Something occurred to him as they reached the top of the sprawling steps, and he turned to Ed, who was now wearing an inscrutable expression. His eyes were shadowed from brilliant gold to a sort of soft-mocha-bronze, and with his hair tucked into his jacket, he looked nothing like the Edward Elric Roy had once knew. 'Don't speak to anyone unless you're spoken to,' Roy said. He got no response. 'Edward,' he pressed.

'What do I tell them when they ask about me?' Ed responded, his voice strange.

Roy felt like asking about it, but squashed the urge in favour of what he had to do. 'Whatever first pops into your head,' Roy said. 'I'll play along. Just – don't take off your hood, alright?'

'Got it,' Ed affirmed, then fell silent. Roy nodded and opened the door to the entrance, ushering Ed in amid the scores of people flooding into the room, grumbling about work.

It was a Friday, so even the complaints were tinged a sort of joy; those soldiers with children were discussing the coming summer vacation, those without were talking of how to spend the summer, and if they could swing a little more weekend leave from this commanding officer or that PA?

It felt surreal, as if he had taken a step back into yesterday morning, and for a few seconds Roy felt that it was so, he without worries other than day care for Sophie and the mountain of paperwork waiting for him. In fact, he would have been content to pretend that the feeling of deja vu was real, but was returned to the world of reality by Edward's gloved hand tapping his forearm. Roy wondered idly where Edward had gotten gloves.

Edward didn't say a word about Roy's absent-mindedness; he only gave Roy an empathetic look and let Roy lead the way deeper into the room.

Multiple people spoke to Roy, and some even shot a curious glance at Edward, but no one spoke to the shorter man, which was a relief. Roy made his way through the crowd and towards the stairs, carefully avoiding the queue for the lifts. Ed shot a look to the steel boxes, an amused cast to his eyes, as he followed Roy; they trudged up the stairs in silence, each contemplating what came next.

Reintroducing Edward to the team.

* * *

Edward swallowed his fears down around the lump in his throat. Something about the whole thing made him uneasy. What if they didn't believe it was him? What if they didn't care? What if they were angry?

_What if they were happy_?

Ed resisted the urge to bury himself in his jacket and refuse to come out, forcing himself to remain tall and silent. If they were happy to see him, overjoyed, that meant that they had been through hell the last fourteen years. Could he live with putting them through that?

A fragment of a sentence, spoken by Roy earlier in the day, made Ed relax. _He got his body back when you disappeared..._ Al was alright, Al was safe. He could live with anything, so long as Al was okay. Even this.

Roy opened the door to his office, and the chatter inside fell quiet. Ed watched as Riza stood and walked over to Roy.

She seemed smaller, somehow, as if in the fourteen years Ed had been gone she had so much placed upon her shoulders that the weight of it all had actually pressed her into a smaller frame. Her blond hair had a few premature silver streaks in it, and there were more lines around her mouth; but there were also more laugh lines crinkling the edges of her eyes. They were etched into her skin, which was the only reason Ed could see them. She certainly wasn't laughing at the moment.

'Sir,' she said, voice quiet and yet firm, auburn eyes soft with sympathy. 'We heard about Elena. I'm so sorry.'

Ed glanced over at Roy, absently noting his wife's name. _Elena Mustang..._ he thought, and smiled sadly under his hood. _A beautiful name._ He had known an Elena in the other world – kind and sympathetic, she had been the owner of an inn that he had worked at, and they had kept in touch – at least, when he wasn't staying at her inn. She had been his friend for a long time. She had probably found that he was missing; she had to be stark-raving-mad and worried...

_No, don't think about that. You're home._

Roy nodded. 'Thank you,' he murmured, and that was enough response for Hawkeye. She turned away from Roy, knowing instinctively that he would want life to continue as normal; her eyes narrowed the tiniest bit as they settled on Edward.

'Who is this, sir?' she asked, voice heavy with disapproval. 'Is he why you're late?' Ed managed to resist gulping in fear.

He and Roy shared a quick glance, and it was decided in that second of mutual understanding that Ed was going to have to explain this one himself. _Bastard,_ Ed growled internally, but he plastered a self-satisfied smirk onto his face.

'What?' He asked, and Riza froze. Havoc's cigarette tumbled from his lips into his coffee, Fuery stood up so quickly he banged his knee on the desk, Falman dropped the book he was reading, and Breda flinched. 'Don't you recognise an old friend?' Ed continued, throwing back his hood and smirking wider.

'Oh my god,' Fuery whispered.

'Son of a _bitch_ ,' Breda murmured in awe.

'I think he's killed her,' Havoc muttered, looking at Hawkeye, who was staring at Ed as if he was a ghost. Which, to her, he was.

Falman fainted.

Slowly, Riza came back to life. She took a step forward. Ed scuttled back. Then she turned and walked over to Breda. 'Give me the bottle of whiskey you keep in your desk,' she demanded. 'I need a drink.'

'Um,' Ed began, but fell silent as Riza whipped around, eyes blazing and gun already pointed.

'Sit your ass down!' Riza commanded imperiously. Ed immediately followed the order, falling into Riza's abandoned seat as Roy snickered in the doorway. Riza pointed her gun at him and he stopped mid-chuckle. 'You,' she seethed, 'Have work to do. Get!'

He dashed into his office, sacrificing dignity for well-being. Ed watched him go enviously. Riza knocked back a shot of whiskey before she paused. Everyone in the office watched her. She smiled, the grin feral and eerie. 'Alright, I'm done,' she announced. 'Have at 'im.'

Like dogs at the call of a master, Breda, Fuery, and Havoc all leapt up and threw themselves at Ed, clutching him up in a soldier's hug, much thumping of the backs and so on. Ed hugged them all back, their euphoria catching, and he laughed with them as they marvelled over him.

'Nine inches!' Breda announced to the office, dropping the tape measure. Falman had since woken up. 'He grew _nine_ inches!'

'Holy _shit_ ,' Havoc smirked. 'I think his hair grew twice that!'

There was some gentle laughter, and Ed scowled at them all. Hawkeye had retrieved another seat, and sat back.. 'Where have you _been_?' she asked. 'Cause you chose a good day to show up. This place was just swept this morning for listening devices, so you can talk all you want.' Ed smiled at her, grateful that she had picked up on the same truth that he and Roy had – no one high up could know that Edward Elric was back. At least, not yet.

He smiled at them all as they sat forward, eager to hear his story. 'What if I told you,' he began, 'That I've been in another world?'

* * *

Roy sat beside his door, having dragged a chair over once the men outside his inner office had made enough racket to mask the sound. There was no way he was missing the coming interrogation of _'Where? What? When?'_ And, most importantly (to Roy, at the very least) the unfathomable question –

_'How?'_

Which was something Roy wanted to know very badly, indeed.

'What if I told you,' Ed finally said, rough baritone muffled through the door, 'That I've been in another world?'

There was silence for a moment. Roy considered the question, then decided that he'd believe Edward. There were other, more believable statements to be made, but none that were as credible (if only because Ed hadn't said them.) That, and he'd said he'd been in this... Belgium place, something Roy had never heard of.

'What do you mean... another world?' Havoc murmured, his slow, country twang sounding as if the words felt wrong in the man's mouth. Edward laughed, a low, rough sound that was devoid of humour or mirth; the sound made Roy shiver, because it was a sound that Elena had made, once or twice. Hers an octave higher, but still.

'I mean,' Ed murmured, 'Another world. Here.' there was a rustle, then the sound of flipping pages. There were various gasps from his men, and he resisted the urge to go out and gawk with them. What were they looking at?

'Um,' Havoc said, laughing lightly, 'Whoever built this was overcompensating for _something_ , don't you think?'

'That's the Eiffel Tower,' Edward laughed. 'It's in a country called France, in a city called Paris.' He chuckled again. 'The French are known as romantics, womanisers; we had a theory that it was less _overcompensating_ , per se, than showing off.'

' _We_?' Hawkeye repeated.

'Turn the page,' Edward cajoled, and there was the quick rustle of paper.

'Oh my god!' Riza exclaimed, and a thump signified the overturning of her chair. 'but that's –!'

'It's not the Greed and Envy you knew,' Edward said, voice heavy. Roy flinched at the mention of the Homunculi, something that he had imagined he had put in the past. 'This other world – it had reflections of us. All of us.'

'Even you?' Falman asked, curious. Ed didn't reply for a minute.

'Yes,' Ed finally managed to say, the memory... convoluted, to put it politely. 'He became a friend of mine. To say it was confusing is an understatement.' The men in front of him were crowded around his sketchbook, peering at the picture of Greed and Envy in front of a patisserie in Paris, sharing a cup of coffee and laughing.

'So, wait,' Fuery asked, eyes wide. 'You met _yourself_?'

'Don't get me started,' Ed said with a smile. 'Or I'll never shut up.'

Riza chuckled. Ed looked down at the faces of Greed and Envy, two of his closest friends in that other world. A confusing thought, but true, all the same. 'We,' he gestured to the two of them, 'went backpacking around Europe, before heading to Africa for a few years.'

'Europe?' Breda repeated, as if trying out the word. Ed nodded.

'I was last in a state called Maine, in a country called America,' he said, taking back the sketchbook and flipping to the page where he had sketched the sea. 'Actually, that's where I was last night.'

'How'd you get here?' Havoc asked, everyone returning to their seats. Ed paused, thinking it over.

How much could he tell them? He had essentially committed suicide to get back here, but they couldn't know that. No one could know that. No one could know the fear he had felt when he tossed himself from that rocky precipice into the tortured ocean, his thoughts going –

_Oh god, what if I was wrong, what if I was wrong, I'm leaving them behind like I left_ them _behind, I can't do that agai_ _n oh god here comes the rocks and the water and the pain –_

and the intense terror that had flared in his stomach as he realised that this might be it. He had nearly died countless times before, truly countless, but never had he ever thought that he actually would. He realised that they were waiting for an answer and cleared his throat.

'I don't know,' he lied, his face betraying nothing. 'I don't know.'

The men took it as gospel truth; Ed wouldn't have a reason to lie to them, would he? The thought made him sick, as Havoc and the others began trading bawdy jokes and the like, and he smiled and laughed and nodded when he was expected to, but not once more did he speak.

No one had to know. About any of it. The sketchbook weighed heavily on his flesh thigh, thick with promises and memories and wishes, and these seeped out from the pages and soaked into his muscles until he was certain they were painted in black, cursive ink all over his skin.

What if it hadn't worked? He didn't believe in an afterlife; he felt that it was a waste of time. Suddenly, his bravado of the night before struck him as reckless and stupid, something he had tried to refrain from being since he turned twenty. He had finally decided it was time to stop saying he was an adult and start acting like one; trekking all over Europe, Africa, and Asia, he had seen more of the world than most people ever saw in a lifetime. Hell, he'd seen more of two worlds than anyone, ever. And now, now he could call himself an adult and not just be an egotistical brat about it.

Neither he, nor the others, noticed that Riza ghosted away into Roy's office.

* * *

Roy rested his head against the wall, eyes closed. Something in him wanted to reject Edward's story as false, as the fancy of a lunatic; but something else in him recognised the truth as what it was, as Ed had spoken it. And that... that was only the tiniest bit less difficult to face than everything else.

The door opened silently and Riza slipped in, her auburn eyes soft with disbelief. 'Did you hear it all, sir?' she asked, voice unaccountably small.

'Yes,' Roy replied, unable to formulate a longer reply.

'And do you believe him?' she pressed, crouching by his side, back to the door.

Roy did not hesitate, simply said the word hovering on the tip of his tongue. 'Yes,' he repeated. Riza slumped against the door and sighed in relief.

'Good,' she said, 'Because I'm not sure he believes it himself, sir.' That earned her an odd look. 'I mean,' She tried to explain, 'He just looked sort of... lost. Like he wasn't sure any of this was happening.' she peered up at him. 'Like he wasn't sure you were real.'

_That_ earned her Roy's full attention. 'You didn't notice?' she asked, surprised. 'He didn't want to leave your sight, as if he was frightened you would up and disappear on him. Sir.' The last bit was added almost as an afterthought.

Roy looked away. 'I have to call and arrange for a ticket to Risembool for Ed,' he murmured, forcing his voice to make words. 'Then I need to call Al. Can you send Ed into my office in... ten minutes?' Riza nodded knowingly and stood, dusting off her knee-length skirt. 'And tell him to be prepared to talk to Alphonse.'

'Of course, sir.' Hawkeye saluted him and left as silently as she came. Roy pulled himself to his feet, shaking himself free of the cobwebs that pulled longingly at his mind, attempting to ensnare him in the net that was his thoughts. _Empty, empty, empty,_ he chanted in his mind. _Empty of thought, empty of emotion, empty of everything but what I need to do._ First, he needed to call the train station and buy a ticket.

Okay. He could handle that.

He sat at his desk, pulling the black phone to himself and dialling the number of the train station.

' _Hello, Central Station Service Desk, how may I help you?_ '

'Hello,' Roy said as pleasantly as he could. Which wasn't much at the moment, but it was saying something. 'I need one ticket to Risembool.'

' _We have two trains leaving today, one at eleven o'clock this morning and another at nine tonight. Which would you like to purchase a ticket for?_ '

'The nine o'clock,' Roy answered. Might as well give Ed some time to rest before he headed home.

' _Th_ _ank you. To whom should I charge the ticket, sir?_ '

'To Roy Mustang's personal account, thank you,' he murmured, and after a moment and the confirmation of the sale, he hung up. He took a deep breath. _Empty, empty, empty..._ All right. Next... calling Al.

Oh, dear.

He picked up the phone again and took a deep breath, dialling slowly, as if to procrastinate the moment when Al would pick up the phone. It rang once, twice, three times –

' _Hello?_ '

'Hello, Al,' Roy said weakly, the past day and a half showing in his voice.

' _Oh, Roy! Good morning. How are you? How's Elena and Sophie?_ '

Roy winced. 'I...'

' _Oh, no,_ ' Al said. ' _What's wrong? Did Sophie get sick again?_ '

'No,' Roy sighed, his breath leaving him in an exhausted rattle.

' _Well, something happened,_ ' Al said practically. ' _What's wrong, Roy? You know I can get the lovely Winry to attack you with wrenches unti_ _l you answer me._ ' In the background, Winry could be heard, clearly saying, " _Who do I get to attack with wrenches?_ "

Roy laughed, but it died in his throat. 'No, it's not Sophie. It's...' He took a deep breath. 'It's Elena. There was – there was an... There was an accident.'

There was silence for a moment. ' _Oh, Gate,_ ' Al whispered. ' _Roy, I'm so sorry._ '

That was the thing that had made Al close as family to Roy – he wouldn't try to cheapen it with platitudes that meant nothing, or ask stupid questions, like, "Oh, no, is she alright?" That might have broken him.

'Don't be,' Roy said, unconsciously repeating himself. 'It's not your fault. She was crossing the street, and someone made an error in judgement. But that's not why I'm calling.' It was best to get away from the subject, anything to get away from the subject.

At that moment, Ed sidled into the room, instinctively quiet, with a sombre expression. His eyes were soft and golden, and they enveloped Roy with a comforting sort of warmth that he needed to continue. 'Actually,' Roy began again, 'There's someone here I want you to talk to. He's been waiting to speak to you specifically for a long time.'

' _If it's another crackpot who wants to know if I know the secret to my brother's success, I'm hanging up_ ,' Al warned. Ed, who could hear the words easily in the quiet room, hid his smile behind his hand. ' _I hate those fuckers –_ ' Ed's mouth dropped in a sort of blatant shock that made Roy snort in amusement, even as on the other end, Al was whacked with a wrench.

'No, he's not,' Roy assured the other man as he muttered under his breath in pain. 'I think you could say he's the reason all those crackpots have been trying to talk to you.'

Al paused, an inquisitive sound echoing over the line. ' _What do you mean?_ ' he asked after a moment, when no answer was forthcoming.

'Here,' Roy said, and he pulled the phone away from his ear and held it out to Ed. 'Why don't you explain?'

Ed took the phone delicately, his steel fingers curving around the black-painted metal, and held the phone up to his ear. His flesh arm curved across his stomach, supporting his automail; he rested his hip against the wood of Roy's desk at a jaunty angle, a bitter-sweet smile playing with the corners of his mouth.

'Hey, Al,' he murmured.

* * *

 


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

Sutra Four: Hanauta

* * *

' _Hello? Who is this?_ ' Al's voice rang out clear over the phone, curiosity and – stunningly – a little dread bouncing about, timbre to timbre.

'It seems no one recognises me anymore,' Ed lamented. 'Though, admittedly, the others had a chance to see me first. So, what's this I hear about you marrying Winry? Do you _have_ a death wish?'

There was silence. Then:

' _No. No. There is no_ fucking _way that you're –_ ' The sound of a wrench striking a skull.

'In the flesh, Al,' Ed replied.

' _Ouch! Fuck, Winry, that was – ow! Dammit, woman! The kids aren't home, and Brother's on the phone!_ '

There was further silence. Then, tinnily, ' _Oh._ '

' _Yeah, "oh"._ ' Ed could hear the pout in Alphonse's voice, he really could. ' _Now, can I have a moment to curse out my brother?_ '

' _Oh, by all means. Then you will hand_ me _the phone._ '

'Oh, that's not at all necessary,' Ed stammered quickly. 'Winry does _not_ need to talk to me on the phone – Oi! Who the hell are you laughing at, you bastard!' This last was directed at Roy, who was snickering. The taller man stood, giving Ed an amused look.

'I'll leave you to your conversation,' he nodded sanctimoniously and swept out of the room. Ed scowled; some things, it seemed, never changed.

' _Brother..._ ' Ed paused at the sound of that voice, the begging one, pleading for his older Brother's attention. Ed could never resist it.

'Yes?' He asked gently.

' _WHERE IN THE NAME OF THE FUCKING GATE HAVE YOU_ BEEN _?_ '

Ed flinched away from the phone, holding it away from his ear. 'Al – give me a chance to – '

' _OH, I'LL GIVE YOU A CHANCE, ALRIGHT! I'LL GIVE YOU ONE CHANCE TO EXPLAIN YOURSELF BEFORE I BUY MYSELF A TRAIN TICKET AND COME UP TO CENTRAL AND POUND YOUR SKULL IN MYSELF, SO HELP ME GATE!'_

'Al...' Edward said cautiously. 'Breathe...'

Astonishingly, Al listened to him, taking a deep breath, then, equally astonishing, bursting into tears. Ed's eyes widened comically as Al sobbed into the phone, both cursing him out and murmuring, ' _I can't believe it, I can't believe it..._ ' between shuddering, gasping breaths. Ed only listened, responding when Al demanded an answer, staying silent while his brother ranted, and finally, Al gained control of himself again.

' _That's it,_ ' he finally managed to say without any weakness in his voice. ' _I'm coming up to Central_.'

'You don't have to do that,' Ed murmured as Roy walked back into the room, an inscrutable expression on his face. Ed looked up, and something within him paused. It wanted to say something to the taller man, but Ed wasn't sure what and decided it couldn't matter much, anyway.

* * *

Roy strode through the door, Edward's train ticket in his pocket; he paused on the threshold, listening shamelessly to the two men's conversation. Edward looked up as he said in a soft voice, 'You don't have to do that,' his gold eyes pausing at the sight of Roy.

Roy pulled the ticket out of his pocket in explanation for his trespass, and Edward shot him a smile, gratitude clear. 'I'm coming to you,' he continued. He mouthed the words as Al spoke.

' _When?_ '

'Nine o'clock tonight, you leave,' Roy replied, and Ed relayed the information. After a moment and a goodbye that seemed reluctant, Ed hung up the phone. Before Roy could say anything, the blond stood straight and walked past him, out the door.

'I need to clear my head,' he threw over his shoulder. 'I'll be back. I won't let anyone see me.'

And like that, Ed was gone. His braid was tucked up into his jacket, the hood cast over his head again, pausing only to receive a pass as it was written out by Hawkeye, so he could come back. Roy cast his eyes down to his hands, letting his gaze slide past them to the carpeted floor.

Riza walked in a moment later, smiling softly, but there was a stern cast to her eyes. 'Sir?' she said. 'I know that today has been stressful and confusing, but we have work to finish by the end of the day. Your paperwork?'

He nodded and walked over to his desk, picking up his pen and pulling a paper to him. He signed his name on the familiar line, a spidery scrawl that evoked memories of an earlier time, when everything was less complicated and he didn't have to worry. He didn't notice Hawkeye leaving.

The pen, an incandescent blue, seemed to drag itself over the paper as if there was a magnet under the page and the pen could only follow, dragged along in a time-line it had no control over, the path cycling over and over, no escape. The swirl and spike mimicked Roy's thoughts, aimless and weary. It was tiring to watch.

What could he do? How did he move on from here? His goal of reaching Fuhrer seemed so far away, as if it was a dream that had faded away in the morning; all he had at the moment was himself and Sophie. He would do anything for his daughter, anything for her, but he just didn't know what to do now.

How was he going to take care of her? He did alright with the basic things – feeding her, clothing her, making sure she didn't run about like a heathen, but how did he do the things that Elena had always done? How was he supposed to talk to her, try to understand her? She was a six year old girl, about as far from a forty year old lieutenant-general as you could get. She was so innocent, so naïve, and he didn't know what he could do to protect her.

'How do I do this on my own?' he murmured into the empty room.

He finished the first stack in record time, setting aside the weary pen, and looked up at the clock. It was twelve-fifteen, meaning that Sophie was on her way home or already there.

'Shit!' Roy swore as he stood like a shot, weaving out from behind the desk, running out of the office without an explanation for his surprised men. All he knew was he had to get there, and he couldn't believe he'd forgotten that no one would be there to pick her up.

'Please,' he whispered as he hurtled down the stairs and out one of the back doors. He didn't even think of his car; there wasn't time for that.

'Please don't let me be late...'

* * *

Edward walked the streets of Central, losing himself amid the bustle and hubbub of the people passing him by. Al's voice had invoked memories that had been perused many times over the past fourteen years; they had slowly lost their lustre, until they were faded many times over, but the sound of Al on the phone, undeniably _human_ , had brought them back.

The blond walked along the kerb, hiding in his jacket from everyone he passed; he strode past stores he had once frequented, a restaurant that he had once loved, a park in which he had sat with Al, once upon a time. Too many 'once's – _I once walked there, I once stood here_ – flooded his mind, sending his head spinning.

Eventually he found himself near a park he had never ventured into before, and he wandered onto a bench, where he sat down, hard.

Tonight, he was going to be heading home, and he smiled softly with that thought. He was going home. He hadn't had a home since he was a child; Risembool was home, Al was home. He smiled as he realised he had a niece and nephew to meet, something that he found himself looking forward to immensely. There was just too much for him to think about, and for the span of a few minutes he was struck dumb by it all, caught in the eddy and swirl and tide of his thoughts until he felt he was drowning in them, overwhelmed and heady.

He sucked in a deep breath, stars jittering in front of his eyes as he realised he had been holding his breath. Okay, organise the thoughts; the first thing he had to do was organise himself.

Issue one: Al. A big issue. Ah, well; best get the worst out of the way.

His brother would have to be told everything. Everything, despite Edward's thought in the office that no one would have to know. Everything from what had, exactly, brought Al's body back from the Gate to what, exactly, had transpired in that other world. How many times Ed had tried and failed to come home. How he finally had. He winced, pulling his coat around him tighter. He was going to get hit for that.

He smiled, a soft one, as he realised that, though he would be hit, he would have years to tell Al all of his stories. A pleasant thought, really.

Issue two: Roy.

Ed frowned. Also a very large issue, and while he had thought through issue one: Al relatively quickly, issue two: Roy was, as always, a tiny bit more convoluted. Okay, screw that, a _hell_ of a lot more convoluted. Al was family; he knew Al's mind almost better than anyone else, even allowing for fourteen years away. But Roy – well, he'd never really quite wrapped his head around Roy.

Roy's attitude toward him had changed a _lot_. Edward had never felt this comfortable around anyone but Al or Winry before, and _maybe_ the Greed and Envy of Earth. He had told him a story that he would have hesitated to tell his brother, which was saying something.

If he was honest with himself, he felt bad about leaving Roy and his daughter alone so soon after a tragedy. Hell, he felt bad about showing _up_ so soon after the tragedy, a bit like a bumbling idiot who walked into the wrong funeral home. His return home was supposed to be happy, not overshadowing the death of a woman whom many of his closest people held dear. It was nothing more than bad timing on his part – really, couldn't he have waited a week or two to leap into the sea?

A thought occurred to him as a child ran past, bouncing a large white ball. No, he couldn't have. The moon had possibly helped with his return, and that was too likely a possibility to curse his bad timing. Best to leave it be, he decided.

And from there, he thought of Roy and Sophie. How on earth was the man supposed to cope on his own? Even at the best of times (which included the time he had spent in the car with Roy), the Flame Alchemist was anathema to his own element – cool, calm, collected, and about as warm emotionally as an ice statue. And Sophie was obviously a bright and effervescent girl, full of happiness. If Roy was grieving for his lost wife, how could he afford to be happy for his daughter?

Altogether a headache-inducing conundrum and one, Ed realised as he stood, squinting up at the sky, that could be put aside. It had to be almost twelve.

He turned away, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hood, and smiled. He could go get food from the team, who would be perfectly willing to treat him on his first day back. He'd have to dodge some questions, but... well, if one thing about Edward hadn't changed, it was his appetite.

He stepped out onto the kerb, pointing himself toward Central. _Hmm_ , he thought vaguely, a breeze flirting with the edge of his hood, the fingers in his pockets brushing past the letter that would allow him to return to base. _I wonder if that restaurant down by the river is still –_

'Bum! Hey, bum!'

Something small and distinctly kid-sized burst out from the crowd, attaching itself to his legs. He stumbled slightly under the weight of the tackle, and several people chuckled before sidestepping the pair; Ed looked down in surprise to find a large gardener's hat.

'Sophie?' He asked, confused.

'That's me, alright!' She lifted her head and smiled at him. 'You remembered my name!' She giggled and gave him a hug, head resting against his hip before stepping back. 'Did my Papa kick you out?' she asked suspiciously. 'I'll have to yell at him if he did.'

The image of Mustang being scolded by a kindergärtner was priceless, and Ed couldn't help but laugh. 'No, he didn't,' Ed smiled, 'I was out for a walk.' He frowned after a moment. 'What are you doing walking around Central?'

'I _was_ at home,' she said in a matter-of-fact tone, 'but there was no one there. So I was going to walk to Papa's work, because Momma's not at her work anymore.' Ed's heart clenched as she said it. 'Momma's not _anywhere_ anymore, that's what my best friend Kristy said,' She confided in the taller man. 'And I think she's right. But – don't tell Kristy I said this – I actually think that Cousin Anda is a better best friend than her.'

Ed smiled again. Was 'Anda' Al's daughter? He'd have to wait until tomorrow to find out.

He blinked down at Sophie as she took his hand, a trusting, expectant look on her face. 'Do you know where Papa's work is?' she asked politely. 'I'm not lost, or anything, but Papa's going to be worried.'

Ed nodded. 'Yeah, I know where R- er, Papa's work is,' he said. 'I'll take you there, alright?'

Sophie nodded, too, and they set off down the street. As they passed a florist, Sophie giggled and picked up a white narcissus, smiling widely at the florist. He smiled back and nodded; Ed guessed it was something about the June air that made people so giving. He'd seen the same thing on Earth. Sophie tugged on his hand, and he knelt by her side, her hazel-yellow eyes peering into his under the hood.

'Can you put it in my hair?' she asked, smiling prettily. 'I can't do it by myself.'

Ed nodded and threaded the long stem in her hair, right behind her left ear. He stood again and paused, surprised to find the florist studying his face under his hood.

'She yours?' he asked, smiling. Ed blushed crazily and shook his head; personally, he thought he was too young for kids. Thirty or not, Ed was not the sort of person to settle down with a family. The florist shrugged. 'She's got your eyes,' he remarked, and before the florist (or Sophie) could say anything more, Ed pretended to see someone he knew down the street and walked away.

'I've got it!' Sophie said after a moment, once they had turned the corner. Ed looked down at her curiously.

'You've got what?' he asked. Sophie tilted her head up, a smile lighting her face like the sun.

'Your name!' She stated, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and she couldn't believe Ed hadn't thought of it first. 'I can't keep calling you bum, after all; Kristy said that isn't nice. But it had to be a name that made sense. But not an ordinary name – ordinary names are boring.'

'So what are you going to call me?' he asked, smiling.

Sophie grinned too. 'I just thought of it, when the florist said I have your eyes. I'm going to call you Papi!'

Edward choked. Sophie gasped and pulled him out of the way of foot-traffic, tugging on his hand with surprising strength; she pulled him to her height, so that he was crouching. 'I thought you said you were 'kay this morning, Papi!' she scolded. Ed blushed again.

'Um, Sophie...' he mumbled through his embarrassment. 'I don't think your _Papa_ would like you calling me that. You can call me Edward, or Ed.' He smiled. 'It's my name, you know.'

'Edward...' She looked at him thoughtfully. 'It's a very pretty name, and it makes sense for you, but...' she shook her head with glee. 'Nope, you make a better Papi!'

'Sophie...'

'If it makes you feel better, Papi,' She said, leaning in and whispering conspiratorially, 'I'll call you Ed when we're near Papa, alright?' She leaned back and smiled sunnily. 'I think he'd make the same silly face you did if he heard me call you Papi!'

'I made a face?' Ed asked, blinking.

'Yeah, like this!' She crossed her eyes and puffed out her cheeks in a choking fashion, holding the expression for a moment before beginning to giggle. Ed started to laugh, too; somehow, the image of a chipmunk in a gardener's hat was too good to miss.

'Oh, thank God!'

* * *

 


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

**Sutra Five: Nenshou**

* * *

Roy ran with all his might, ducking betwixt people like a minnow against the tide, dashing for Sophie.

_How could I have forgotten her?_ He shouted at himself in his mind as he ducked around a fruit cart, narrowly avoiding upturning it. _How could I have done that? She doesn't know where I work! She wouldn't know what to do! She's got to be sitting in that empty house, waiting for Papa and I'm not there!_ What kind of father am I?

These thoughts chased each other through his mind, and he found his eyes scanning for her, looking for a short girl with long black hair and a gardener's hat. _Oh, God, she's alone in the city, I just know it! She probably tried to walk to my work! Anyone could have stopped her, anyone!_

His heart pounded against his ribs, beating out a rhythm that was undeniably the one he ran at, searching for Sophie. He thought, for a split second, that he heard her mother's voice in the wind that plunged past him, snatching at his skin with her words and dismay, screaming, _Where is my daughter!_

_I don't know_ , he wanted to sob back, but the voice was already gone. Now, he was just running, running through crowds of people whose only purpose, it seemed, was to give him obstacles and difficulties in finding his daughter amid their numbers.

He was wrong, of course; each and every person he passed had a story, and a few of them would find themselves in his story, or were actively participating in it, but he didn't know, and didn't care.

Suddenly, he caught sight of her, a breeze of wind playing with the ends of her hair, a white narcissus threaded behind her ear as she held the hand of –

'Oh, thank God!' He gasped as he skidded to a halt beside Ed and Sophie, dropping to his knees as Sophie threw herself at him. 'I'm so sorry, Sophie,' he said, hugging her close and burying his face in her hair. 'I'm so sorry I forgot, you have to be so angry with me, could you ever forgive me?'

'Papa!' She scolded. 'You're choking me! I'm probably making the same face P – Ed was making!'

Roy sat back and pulled himself to his feet, finally taking the moment to look at Edward. In the rush of the moment – searching for Sophie, suddenly finding her safe and sound – he had barely noticed the man. The blond was looking at him with an odd expression, the yellow eyes clouded with a mixture of uncertainty and another emotion, so closely blended Roy knew there would be no identifying of the second emotion. His hood was up at least, Roy thought blankly.

'Thank you, Ed,' he murmured, Sophie's hand clutched tight in his. 'I forgot completely that Elena wouldn't –' he cut himself off, looking away. 'Anyway, thank you. When did you go to my house?'

'I didn't,' Ed replied, voice quiet. 'I was sitting in a park, thinking, then when I got up to go, a black-haired blur attached itself to my legs, shouting "Bum! Hey, bum!"'

Roy laughed at that, and beside him, Sophie nervously giggled, as if uncertain what her father's reaction would be to her wandering the streets of Central.

There was something in that moment – fleeting, but sure, and still indescribable until much later – an emotion, or sensation – that Roy had never felt before. It radiated from himself, from Sophie, and, surprisingly, from Ed, as if it was mutual sort of sensation, shared only between the three. It would happen often, but try as he might, Roy wouldn't be able to identify it. At least, not alone.

'Sophie,' he asked, turning to his daughter and (regretfully) breaking the moment, 'What were you doing in the park? It's not very close to my work.'

' _I_ didn't know where your work was,' she sniffed. ' _I_ thought I was headed in the right direction.' She scowled playfully at her father, squinting her eyes and pursing her lips. 'You need to show me where you work, so I can find you after kindergärten.'

'No,' Roy sighed. 'I can't let you do that. Central is dangerous for little girls like you.'

'Is not!' Sophie protested, scowling harder. 'I'm a _big_ girl, if you hadn't noticed! I use big words like _direction_ and _ordinary_ and _actually,_ so there! If Central is dangerous for little girls, then I'm perfectly safe right where I am!'

'Sophie...' Roy sighed. She was as stubborn as her mo– _Empty, empty, empty..._ 'It doesn't work that way. You can't just run off like that – I was very worried as it was. Can you imagine how worried I would have been if I had gone home and you weren't there? You were very, very lucky that Ed happened to be here.'

Sophie's scowl softened, and she squeezed Roy's hand, an apologetic light in her hazel-yellow eyes. 'I'm sorry, Papa,' she murmured. 'I thought if I had found my way to your work, you'd be proud of me...'

'Liar,' Roy said, but it was teasing. He hoisted her up in his arms, resting her against his hip. He sighed. 'What am I going to do with you?' he continued, rolling his eyes when she stuck her tongue out at him. He looked to Ed, who was wearing the odd expression again as he watched the two, and the look was quickly replaced by an amused, slightly wistful look. Roy shot him a questioning glance.

'Just never imagined you to be the domestic father type,' he said with a small smile as they began to walk towards Central Command.

Roy made a non-committal noise and busied himself with Sophie, asking how her day was, and so on; it was as much honest curiosity as it was a way to hide from embarrassment.

Okay, maybe a smidgen more embarrassment.

Once they were halfway to Command, Roy realised something. 'What am I going to do about you?' he asked Sophie. 'I can't let you stay home by yourself. Maybe you should take a different –'

'I'll pick her up in the afternoon.'

Roy and Sophie looked at Ed at once, Sophie's face full of undisguised happiness and Roy's probably full of unmasked confusion. Ed wasn't prone to making offers that inconvenienced himself unless it was for the benefit of others; or, Roy realised, looking into Ed's equally surprised eyes, that was the Ed he had known fourteen years earlier.

Fourteen years earlier... what a long time to think back on. Ed had been so focussed on regaining his brother, maybe the part of him that was the person who stood in front of Roy today – mature and calm, rock-steady and _free –_ had been hidden like a butterfly in a chrysalis, only now it had been free of its cocoon for years now and Roy could finally see the adult that Ed had become. It was an odd moment, this sudden shift of perceptions, and Roy realised that, for the past half day, he had been thinking of Ed as his subordinate, as he had once been; a sixteen-year-old, hell-bent on his own path, forever and indescribably Ed.

Now Ed was the same person, just expanded. More fully himself, and finally someone who could be declared an equal. Which was a disconcertingly pleasurable thought for Roy to have.

'Are you sure?' Roy asked, watching Ed. The blond looked equally surprised at his statement, but stood behind it; he nodded in the affirmative and smiled.

'Why not?' Ed shrugged. 'It means I have one solid thing to focus on during the day, instead of this vague "what happens now?" Besides,' and here he smirked, something that Roy had never imagined on his face, 'I think Sophie likes me. You don't mind, do you, kiddo?'

_Kiddo_? Roy repeated blankly in his head, but on his hip Sophie nodded excitedly. 'Yay!' she squealed, her grin bright and infectious. 'This means Papa can't kick you out!'

Both men blinked at that, but Roy nodded slowly at Edward, anyway. At least this way he could be certain Ed wouldn't end up causing himself trouble. Knowing Edward (and he liked to think he knew Edward) he would find _some_ way to start _some_ fight, and then he'd have to go to a hospital, and then people would know he was back...

Yeah. Ed should probably stay within Roy's line of sight.

* * *

The offer was as unexpected as it was gracious, and Ed had never expected it to tumble from his mouth. That said, he had never expected Roy to accept his daughter's words and open his home up to Edward. It was all a little confusing, to be honest, and Ed wanted to shake his head in disbelief. He ignored the urge and looked into Roy's eyes.

'Are _you_ sure?' he asked, and suddenly there was a spark of warmth in Roy's eyes, something he wasn't sure he'd get used to seeing. It had been in Roy's eyes a few minutes ago, when he found Sophie, and now it burned into him, burrowing into his skin. Not an unpleasant sensation, actually –

'Of course,' Roy said, and he tilted his head to the side slightly. 'Equivalent Exchange?'

– oh, Gate.

'How could I have –' Ed gasped, his eyes going wide. It hadn't occurred to him at all, not once in this multitudinous madness that had suddenly become his life in the past day. He hadn't had it for so long, had given it up for lost, that once he was home he never thought of trying to see if he had gotten it back.

But in the same moment, he wondered what he had given up for it if he had.

'Ed?' The voice was muffled by his own roaring thoughts, but it was said loud enough for Ed to take notice of it. It was not Roy, but Sophie who looked piercingly at him now, and he wondered distractedly if she knew she had inherited that look from her father. ' "How could you have" what?' Her voice was clearing through the tangle of his thoughts with the accuracy of a blade, slipping into the minute imperfections of the whirl of ideas in his mind and making itself heard.

'How could I have forgotten,' he finished, and when he looked up at Roy, it was with a lightning bright smile and only the tiniest flash of canine. 'What's rightfully mine.'

'Ed, you're talking in riddles,' Roy warned, though there was more curiosity in his voice than exasperation.

'Isn't that what we've always done?' Ed replied, the smile somehow widening. 'Let's head back – I'll explain there.'

'No fair!' Sophie protested. She scrambled down from her father's hip and ran over to Ed, demanding to be picked up. He did so, his automail not even noticing the strain as she wrapped her arms around his neck for balance. 'You shouldn't keep secrets,' she scolded. Roy was giving him a strange look now – the same look he had worn in the kitchen that morning, like he wasn't seeing what was in front of him.

Ed walked up to him and tapped him on the forearm, and like before, the black eyes zeroed in on the white, unmarked gloves that Ed had found balled up in his jacket pocket and slipped on to hide his automail. The irises shot from the gloves to Ed's eyes, and something in Edward shivered.

'Let's go,' Roy murmured, and the abrupt change in mood from effusively human to the ice statue Ed had known as a teenager struck him again, as it had on the steps of Central Command. But he let it slide, as he had before, and simply shifted Sophie to a more easily dis-mountable position on his hip as he nodded. She smiled, forgetting her annoyance of seconds before, and let herself be put down.

It was a near silent walk for Ed. Sophie and Roy chattered beside him (or, rather, Sophie chattered and Roy made himself heard every few minutes), but Edward just sort of followed them, lost in his thoughts.

It was a feeling of elation that filled him, and it took every inch of his willpower not to try out his theory right now, instead of where it was safe and not likely to, well, panic the general populace. After all, that would be like flashing a neon sign that read "Edward Elric is here!"

'Ed?'

'Hmm?' he asked, looking at Sophie. She skipped over to him and smiled sunnily.

'Can I have a piggy-back ride?' she asked, voice sweet and pleading. He knelt obligingly, and when she scrambled on, he stood quickly, making her shriek with laughter.

That laughter made him want to smile, too. Sophie was a good kid, he thought affectionately, and they continued. He would have lost himself in his thoughts again, but Sophie had leaned forward and rested her chin on his shoulder, and was speaking to him.

'Papi?' she murmured, the sound even softer through the hood. Edward blushed again. 'I'm glad you're staying with us, Papi,' she continued in a low voice. 'I like you.'

'I like you, too, Sophie,' Ed replied in a quiet voice. 'You're a good girl for Papa, right?'

'Most of the time,' she answered gravely, and Ed almost laughed. 'But Papa isn't always happy. And when Papa's not happy, I'm sometimes bad. I can't help it, though – he just goes all cold and dark, and the only thing that makes him warm again is somebody getting on his nerves.' She giggled. 'Momma was really good at it – though she did it in other ways, too. She'd talk him out of the dark and twisty times his brain sometimes gets stuck in, and back into the bright and shiny times.'

'Bright and shiny?' Ed repeated, smiling amusedly. Sophie nodded, chin bumping his shoulder in eager affirmation.

'That's what I call it when he's not cold, or dark and twisty,' she stated. 'But, it's strange – the bright and shiny he used to be had all sorts of dark and twisty hidden inside. Like it was buried too deep for even Momma to dig it out and wash it away. But now it's a different sort of dark and twisty, as if the two kinds traded like Kristy and I trade sandwiches at lunch.' She winced. 'Don't tell Papa that I said this, but I don't really like peanut-butter and jelly. I like Kristy's tuna sandwiches better.'

Ed laughed, though her words resounded in him. Something just wasn't right with it, but he couldn't figure it out for the world. Sophie nuzzled his shoulder companionably and whispered, 'I think Papa could get rid of some of his dark and twisty, though, if you help him. You make Papa act weird.'

'Weird how?' He asked, turning his head slightly to the side to hear her low words better.

'Weird like... like he's not cold and dark and twisty, for a change,' she thought aloud. 'It's like you're someone who went away a long, long time ago, and he gave up on you, and now you're back. It's a strange sort of bright and shiny – it feels warmer than the bright and shiny that he had when Momma made him bright and shiny.'

Ed was silent a moment, considering her words carefully. 'I did go away a long time ago,' he said. 'Someday I'll tell you stories from where I went.'

'Stories?' All of the thoughtfulness vanished from Sophie's voice, to be replaced with childish delight. 'I love stories! Can you tell me a story before I go to bed?'

'Probably,' Ed replied, smiling when he saw Roy look back at them, a curious look on his face. 'But I won't make any promises - urk!'

The 'urk!' is the sound one makes when they're strangled by a six-year-old who thinks that they're hugging someone.

Roy snickered as Sophie let go, and Ed shot him a watery glare; Sophie had one hell of a grip for a kid, that was for sure. He almost didn't hear her next words.

'Thank you thank you thank you, Ed!' she squealed. 'You'll have the coolest stories ever, I can tell, did you know that Uncle Al is a storyteller? He writes big books that I can't read yet – I can read, but only books at school – but he's a really good storyteller, and actually, you look like him just the tiniest bit – are you two related? He's not really my uncle, he's just Papa's friend, but they're really close, we go there for holidays and I can visit my cousins, but they're not really my cousins, but you know what I mean. Anyway, if you two are related –'

Not that there was any sense to be made of her rambling, Ed thought, heavily amused. He shot a look at Roy, who was still chuckling under his breath, and he shook his head at the taller man as they turned to the left and Central Command came into view.

It was a few seconds before Ed noticed Sophie had fallen silent. In fact, he only noticed that she had been quiet when she whispered, 'Doesn't Papa work in a beau – be-you – pretty place, Papi?'

'Yes, he does,' Ed replied without thinking, meaning every word.

When everything you love disappears on you, he thought wryly, _sights that used to be mundane mean so much once they're returned to your everyday life._ The thought made him smile. _Never thought I'd see the day when Central Command was beautiful._

* * *

 


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

**Sutra Six: Hitoshirezu**

* * *

Roy was curious.

Okay, that's a bit of an understatement. He was positively ravenous to know what had surprised Ed into that fevered look of longing and misery and pure exaltation, but he knew that if he asked, he would be shot down like a pigeon. It wouldn't do, anyway, to show how curious he was; there were times to be open and human, (and he forced himself to think the next words) but not the day after your wife died in a terrible accident.

Besides... it was Ed's business. Not Roy's. And here, something in Roy wanted to argue that point, but as that part was a part of Roy that he tended to ignore, the arguments went unheeded.

Pity, that. It would have made the next week or so less of a living hell.

Before he had time to register that they had passed through Central Command, he found himself in his office, Ed and Sophie by his side and his entire team glaring at him.

'And where did _you_ go?' Hawkeye asked, her voice dark and malevolent. Roy resisted the urge to step back. 'As you didn't seem to find it necessary to tell me what was wrong, I'm expecting a full explanation.' she pulled out her gun and rested it, forbiddingly, in her right hand. 'Start talking.'

It was as if Hawkeye knew this was the one day she'd be able to order him around, because he was so disoriented. Roy took a deep breath, but never got to use it.

'He was picking me up,' Sophie said clearly. 'He forgot that Momma couldn't do it, so he was worried when he found out that I would be home alone. But P – Ed was in the park I was walking through, so I went with him. Papa and him decided that Ed would pick me up after school, so now everything's 'kay.' She shifted forward on Ed's shoulders so Riza could see her earnest face. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make everyone worry. I thought that if I got here all on my own, Papa would be proud of me...'

Riza, to Roy's eternal surprise (and that of the assembled people), melted. She nodded with a wide smile on her face, giving her warmest look to Sophie.

'That's alright, dear,' she said, her auburn eyes kind and gentle. She turned to Roy, and all of that warmth was lost. 'But make sure you tell me where you're going next time. Got it?'

'Understood, Major,' Roy replied, and the use of her rank seemed to jolt Riza back to her usual self. She nodded and then turned to Ed.

'How was your walk, sir?' She asked as Sophie clambered down.

'Don't call me sir, it's weird,' Ed replied with a crooked smile. Roy watched him, confused; the mood swings each of them were having seemed to be locked in some sort of intricate dance of which neither knew the rules. Roy would have pondered it further, but decided to just sit back and watch Ed explain himself. 'It was fine.'

'Good, _sir_ ,' Hawkeye replied, placing emphasis on the title. Ed scowled, pushing his hood back with one hand. After a moment, though, the scowl blossomed into a smirk.

'Hey,' Ed directed at Roy without turning his head. 'Got any chalk?'

Roy felt his eyebrow rise. 'Of course,' he said, fishing the slender stick out of his pocket. 'Why?'

'I want to try something,' Ed replied, taking the chalk with a smile. Sophie hovered over him, curious, as he knelt and drew a circle on the ground.

Roy's shoulders tensed, and everyone in the room (short of Sophie) did as well. 'What are you doing?' Hawkeye demanded.

'Trying something,' Edward said, and underneath the bravado in his voice, Roy detected a current of anxiety. Roy knelt as well, studying closely the lines Ed was sketching out. It was nothing to be worried about, only a change of state, water into ice. A very simple array, and Edward was drawing it out?

'Why are you –' Havoc started, but Ed held up a hand. Havoc fell silent. Roy knew instantly what Ed was looking for when his head rose and he scanned the room; Roy stood and went over to the water machine, coaxing a cup of water from its depths and handing it to Ed. The blond shot him a grateful look, gold eyes mellowed to yellow in their thanks, and it made Roy feel warm.

Ed placed the cup in the centre of the array, and bowed over it, as if he was in prayer. His hands came together gently, a steeple of white cloth gloves, and he pressed his fingers to the outline.

Ice crackled, the waxed paper cup freezing in a familiar burst of blue light, and even as Roy admired the beautiful pattern of splintered ice on the cup, he couldn't help but wonder why Ed would go to this much effort just to freeze water.

'...Ed?' Fuery ventured.

There was silence for a moment, then Ed's laughter filled the room.

His mirth was so full of awe, and exhilaration, and pure _satisfaction_ that it shivered through Roy's body as if it was the first time he had ever heard anything, ever. It was so much more real than anything else in the room, so terribly _present_ , and it made the breath catch in Roy's throat and the other members of his team gasp.

'You have to understand,' Ed murmured, and the voice made Roy blink, because it was so incredibly happy. 'In the world I was in, there was no such thing as alchemy. Well, not as we knew it.'

Whatever warmth that had been generated by Ed's voice was wiped out by the cold wash of understanding that flooded Roy. If Roy lost his alchemy, he would have been lost for a very long time. But if Ed, for whom alchemy was more than just a tool but _part of him_ , lost his alchemy – it was pain beyond imagining, and what Roy could imagine of it was lost and cold and miserable. Dark and twisty, as Sophie called depression.

'It was a forbearer of chemistry, there,' Ed continued. 'They had no equivalent of what we can do here. So I went without for so long that it only just occurred to me that I might have it back.'

And suddenly, Ed's indescribable happiness made perfect sense to Roy.

* * *

Ed wanted to stand up and run around, laughing and jumping and acting like a kid again. This kind of happiness was unparalleled, completely incomparable to anything else he had ever experienced. The only word that even came close to describing it was _euphoria_ , and he just _knew_ it was spilling out of his voice and dying his skin the brightest hues of joy.

'So you didn't have it at all?' Sophie asked, awestruck-sounding. 'But now you have it back!' He turned around and smiled at her. Yeah, he did have it back. Just one more thing to try.

In the corner of the room was a rather ugly aspidistra, looking vaguely like it was crouching away from the bright happiness that Edward was radiating. He stood and walked over to it, plucking two of the leaves, and walking back to Sophie. He handed them to her, and she took them, smiling. 'What are you going to do?' she asked, holding them up for him.

He knew that everyone was watching curiously, but for some reason, he could feel Roy's eyes the strongest – understanding and pleased. 'Try something else,' he said with a wink, and clapped his hands.

It ran through his arm until it was tingling in his palm; that instinctive current of alchemy that had been taken away from him. He set his fingers delicately on the leaves, and Sophie watched in wonder as they changed shape, thinning out and fluting up at the tips, and within a few seconds, she was holding two identical, thorn-less roses.

'They're so pretty, Ed!' She exclaimed, looking them over; soon, she was satisfied that they were real, and she skipped over to her father, handing him one. She went back to Ed and handed him the other, a sunny smile almost reaching her ears. 'Can you do other things? Please?' she begged, her face bright with excitement. There was a gentle ripple of laughter that echoed around the room, and Ed mock-scowled at them all before letting his face relax again into the happiness that his heart bore.

Sophie tilted her head up at him, considering his face. 'You're bright and shiny again,' she announced, then took off her gardener's hat. 'Can you turn this into something?'

Ed set aside his rose, clapping his hands again and setting them on the rim; in a flash of blue light, Sophie was holding a rather cuddly doll, if Ed did say so himself. She gave a delighted little cry, spinning around and holding the doll up.

Ed distinctly heard Hawkeye mutter, 'She's got him wrapped around her little finger,' but as it was true, he didn't contest it. Sophie hugged the doll close, and as she went to show it to Havoc, Roy tapped Edward on the shoulder.

'Can I speak to you?' he asked, and his tone of voice put Ed on edge. Had he done something wrong? He picked up his rose and followed Roy into his office, closing the door behind him. Sunlight streamed through the window, making the room bright, but for some reason the air felt cold against Ed's skin.

Roy sat down at his desk, setting the rose aside. He steepled his fingers and set his chin on them as Ed sat in front of him; Ed watched curiously, as Roy took a deep breath, closing his eyes. When his eyes opened again, they were strong and sure, which was the only reason Ed realised that he had not been before.

'So,' Roy asked, voice neutral. 'What next?'

'What do you mean?' Ed replied, eyebrow raised.

'What comes next for you?' Roy clarified, his trademark smirk making itself known. 'After all, you have everything back, now. If you want, we can "find" you, and make you known to the military again. You'd get your title back, if you wanted it.'

Ed blinked. So _that's_ what this is about. 'Why would I do that?' he asked, eyebrow raised. Roy flinched slightly, something that Ed took note of for future inspection. 'I spent most of my teenage years – and all of my adult life – hating militaries in general. Why, in the name of the Gate, would I want to join one again?'

Roy smiled now, his chin settling more fully on the weave of his fingers. 'You're still incorruptible,' he murmured, and something in Ed warmed at the tone of voice he used. 'Still hell-bent on your path of right and wrong.'

Ed found that, as much as he would like to respond, the words were damming themselves up in his throat, refusing to spill out and question Roy.

'Is it possible, Ed,' Roy continued, his eyes glittering slightly, 'if your path might intersect with mine?' He sat up straight and unlinked his fingers, setting his right hand palm up on the table. 'I could use someone like you on my side again,' Roy coaxed.

'I...' Ed blinked. 'Where is your "path" going?'

'The direction it was always headed,' Roy murmured. 'After all, I still have a promise to keep.'

'To Maes?' Ed queried, and as always, the name brought a soft pang to his heart.

'Well, him too,' and Ed noticed the avoidance of Hughes' name. 'But more so, a promise I made to Elena.'

* * *

Roy watched Ed's eyes flash quicksilver understanding. He didn't understand – nor would he ever, if Roy could help it – but it was enough for Roy. The memory slid across his mind, as quicksilver as the gold of Ed's eyes.

_'I know.'_

_'Know what?' Roy asked, but he already knew. Sophie slept in her cradle between them, a year old today. She shifted slightly, chubby arms wrapped around her blanket, and he was inordinately glad she would not hear this, even if she wouldn't understand it._

_'I know what you're planning on doing,' Elena swept a fall of her bright blond hair behind her ear, looking at him with hazel eyes that, for some reason to him, never seemed quite the right shade. 'And what I am to you.'_

_Roy couldn't think about the last sentence, because it would devour him if he ever mentioned it, even to himself, and then he would only be a shell. So he focussed on the first part, and if she noticed his avoidance of the last sentence, she never mentioned it._

_'Who told you?'_

_'No one had to tell me,' Elena murmured, and her thin, tanned fingers brushed away some short, fine black hair from Sophie's mouth. Elena's fingers had always felt brittle in Roy's hands, as if they were too thin, too long. 'I can see it now. Why didn't you tell me that you were planning on becoming Fuhrer?'_

_'It was safer if you didn't know,' he sighed. 'They would spare you if you had no idea.'_

_'Spare me?' she shook her head. 'You know I wouldn't want to be spared if you –' she stumbled over the word, and Roy took pity on her._

_'Died,' he finished._

_'Yes,' she said, vehement and sure, and the same reaction hit Roy's heart that hit it every time she said she loved him. A bitter, aching squeeze, as if her voice was stabbing him._

_She was looking at him now, with the not-quite-right eyes that he both loved and detested, and sighed. 'You are not allowed to fail,' she said, and Roy started. She reached out and trailed her fingers down his face, the tips feathering down his skin as if she felt she needed to memorise him, as if it was going to happen tomorrow. There was a tender look in her eyes as she kissed him, and it felt odd, as it always had. 'You will be king.'_

_'Fuhrer,' Roy replied with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes._

_'To the selfsame tune and words,' she laughed lightly, and the two of them left Sophie's nursery._

His fingers were splayed to the sky, resting on his desk with an air of promise; he had to keep this promise, more so than any other in his life. He had promised, and he would follow through. He would be king.

Ed sighed across from him. 'You're a bastard for doing this,' he said, running one hand through his hair and pulling free tendrils of gold. He stood, and for a brief moment, Roy was worried that he'd overstepped his bounds, had pushed too fast and too far, and Ed was going to leave. The same bitter, aching squeeze he had felt when Elena told him she loved him struck his heart, and he almost curled his fingers into his palm and withdrew his offer.

Ed, as always, defied expectations, and stepped forward, laying his palm on Roy's. Through the gloves, Roy felt the heat of his skin, and it felt so personal that he knew Ed wasn't doing this for past loyalties.

'We'll make you king,' Ed promised, and Roy was lost.

* * *

 


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

**Sutra Seven: Kakou**

* * *

Ed pulled away quickly, not wanting to overstep his bounds and hold onto Roy's palm. He hoped the jerky movement would snap Roy back to the present; he recognised the look in Roy's eyes – the look of a memory haunting him, and Ed wanted strongly to impart some comfort to the taller man. It was an urge born of affection – affection that stemmed from his absence of fourteen years and the kindness he had already been shown by the man before him, despite the hard time he was struggling through.

Besides; he felt a certain affection for Roy's wife, for having been so kind as to give him a child like Sophie. They had obviously cared for one another quite a bit, in order to have a family together; and if all Roy was asking was help in fulfilling a promise to his wife, to his Elena, then, dammit, Ed was going to help him.

'What should we say to the military?' he asked, quickly before the moment became awkward. Roy sat back, and Edward could have sworn he could see the gears turning in the man's mind.

'We could say,' Roy proposed after a moment, 'that you were on assignment.'

'Assignment?' Ed repeated dumbly. 'But – Roy, that will never work. They'd see through it in a minute!'

'Would they?' Roy asked, eyebrow raised. 'If we said that it began under Bradley's reign?'

Edward thought on it a moment. 'They could just check the paper records,' He said slowly.

'During that last battle,' Roy explained, a half-smile making itself known, 'Bradley's home was burned down. It is well-known that he kept all records of top secret assignments in his house. They were all burned. They are _still_ discovering evidence of missions only now concluding. You coming back would be a miracle, but not an unlikely one.'

'So, how do you suggest we go about this whole 'pretending to find me' thing?' Ed asked, but something was settling on his shoulders. It was a sense of ease, as if everything would go smoothly from here on out. Or, at least, that's what he told himself; in truth, it was Roy's unshakeable faith that it would all turn out okay, and it was that sense of control – it was all in hand – that put his mind at peace. 'It can't be as simple as walking up the steps.'

'Actually,' Roy smiled, 'It's exactly as simple as that. However, it can wait until you get back from Al's. The army would take you in and question you about your whereabouts, and that could take two days at the most.' Roy opened his mouth as if to say something more, but at that moment, Sophie opened the door and peeked in.

'Papa?' she asked, warily.

Ed watched amusedly as Roy's face softened. 'Yes, Sophie?' And Hawkeye thought that he was the only one Sophie had wrapped around her finger.

'Miss Hawkeye said that you could leave early today,' she said, stepping in and closing the door behind her, doll clutched to her chest. 'She told me to tell you.'

Ed glanced at the clock on the wall at the same time Roy did, both surprised to find that it was one in the afternoon. Ed would have stood, but Sophie ran up and plopped herself on his lap, turning and smiling at him. 'You're coming home with us, right?' She asked, eyes big. Ed realised suddenly that her eyes were just a bit too yellow to be called hazel. They were more of a bright ochre, and he thought back to the florist. The narcissus was now limply twined around the strand of hair he had used to keep it in place, and for a second he wanted to clap his hands and bring it back to life.

He looked to Roy, who nodded; he passed the message onto Sophie, who giggled in delight and wrapped her arms around Ed's neck in a fierce hug. The blond smiled as she whispered, 'And you owe me a story, Papi!'

He was going to have to get her to call him by name. He really was. Maybe later.

Roy stood, shaking his head with amusement at his daughter. Really, Sophie had taken quite a shine to Ed; he'd never seen her so openly affectionate with anyone, even her parents. In fact, the only one she had ever hugged quite as much was Al.

Roy smiled. So, apparently it was the Elric charm, again. Something that both brothers had always insisted the other had more of.

Edward followed his lead, standing and maintaining balance as Sophie crawled up him like a lemur and perched on his shoulders. She smiled and laughed, and pointed down at Roy. 'Someday, Papa, I'll be _this_ tall,' she said, smirking down at him. Roy's eyebrow rose, but he smiled too.

'Of course, Sophie,' he said, and she swatted the back of his head as he went by. She helped Ed put on his hood (as she was currently sitting on it) and they, too, walked out into the office. Roy felt their presence behind him,

Hawkeye stood, a warm look on her face masking her concern for him. 'You try and relax over the weekend,' she insisted, ushering them out the door. 'I don't want to see you until Monday. And Ed –' she paused, eyes skating over the blond as if she didn't want him to go, for fear he'd disappear again. 'Come back soon,' she finished, a sad look in her eyes. 'Just because you're not in the military doesn't mean that you mean any less to us.'

'Thank you,' Ed replied, and Roy tried to catch his eyes, but he had hidden them under his hood. Ed stooped to fit himself and Sophie through the door, and Roy followed, waving a goodbye over his shoulder.

That feeling of earlier flooded Roy again as he navigated the three of them through Central in such a way as to not run into anyone who would try to speak to him. The feeling that poured and fluttered out of himself, Sophie, and Ed; he didn't recognise it in the slightest. It was a weight in his stomach, almost as if he was dizzy, and for some reason his head was light. It got worse, almost heart-wrenchingly so, whenever he thought of the two people at his side, so he tried to not think of them except in the most rudimentary of ways.

Sophie and Ed were talking in undertones to one another, Sophie having slid to Ed's waist. Ed held her up untiringly, listening to her and responding as if she was as mature as he; it was a thought that struck Roy oddly, as if it had been on its way to becoming a full-fledged thought and _just_ missed the turn-off to his brain. It slid past him into the ether, and after a moment, Roy couldn't remember what he had been thinking about. He was distracted and tired as he led them out of the building through a side entrance, and the sunlight struck them.

It was warm on his skin, enhancing the exhaustion that crouched in his bones; he hadn't even noticed it, to be honest. The adrenaline of the day had propelled him through it, and it felt less like on in the afternoon, more like six or seven. All he knew was that he was tired and unfocussed and that Ed was beautiful when the sunlight slanted across his face like that and that Sophie would need to be fed and then tucked in at seven.

'Papa?'

Roy looked up at her, and found two pairs of yellow eyes trained on him. Sophie fidgeted on Ed's back. 'Papa,' she said, sounding nervous, 'Are you alright?'

'Yes, I'm just tired,' he said, and then, to his surprise, he yawned. Sophie's eyes narrowed, even as Ed's brightened in amusement.

'It's 'cause you didn't sleep well last night!' She scolded him. 'Now that Momma's not here, someone's gotta look after you!'

Her words struck him, slicing across his throat. Dimly, he remembered a conversation with Gracia about Elysia, how it took her a long time to understand that her father was gone. And she hadn't been much younger than Sophie at the time. But Sophie had accepted it so easily, as if her mother had only been there a brief time before disappearing; a mayfly's single flight before falling into the water, leaving only ripples in the lives of those of whom had been lucky enough to touch her.

'Ed, help me!' She demanded of her ride, not taking her eyes off of her father. Ed was watching him as well, but his eyes were not exasperated; Roy felt entirely too exposed to the gold gaze, as if Ed's eyes were molten and burning away his coldness, leaving him in a hot roil of emotion he couldn't deal with. 'Tell him that –'

'Hush, Sophie,' Ed murmured. From anyone else, in any other tone, Sophie would have taken offence; but now she only fell silent, then hugged herself close to the man. Roy realised that he had been staring at Ed for a full minute, and looked away, a light flush warming his skin. Damn his fair complexion.

A few minutes later (during which Sophie and Ed resumed their conversation) they were at the parking lot, where Roy had vaguely remembered parking his car that morning. Sophie dismounted, hopping up into the back-seat with childish glee; she loved riding in the car. Ed took the front seat, and Roy sat beside him, turning the key in the ignition.

Within a few minutes, they were driving down the road, and Edward pushed back his hood, pulling his braid free of the coat and rolling down his window to Sophie's delight. Roy couldn't bring himself to say anything, even if the back of his mind noted that Ed's hair had to be very fine to ripple like that in the wind.

* * *

Ed flopped back down onto the grass of Roy's backyard, taking a deep breath of the scent of the dirt and sighing it out happily. Well, sort of happily.

The past few hours had been pleasant, he supposed. Roy had made both lunch and dinner; they had spoken of trivial nothings that meant the world to Ed – what had happened in the past fourteen years. Izumi, his teacher, had died about six years ago, peacefully in her sleep; Gracia and Elysia had moved to a town out east, where they lived in peace; Pinako was still alive and kicking, and Ed's niece and nephew (Anda, as he'd suspected, and Liam) were seven and eight, respectively.

The news about Izumi had brought him some sorrow – he had hoped to say goodbye – but the other news was welcome, if only it meant that everyone was still okay.

Sophie ambled over and plopped down beside him, instantly picking up a piece of his long hair and beginning to braid it. As soon as he had let his hair out of the major braid, she had gasped and immediately ran her hands through it, marvelling at it. And if Roy thought that Ed had missed the amused look he had shot at his daughter, the man had another thing coming.

She had brushed it out for him with glee, something that had interrupted the men's conversation as it had made Roy snort in laughter every once in a while. And now she was making a long, thin braid, and Ed was so relaxed into the earth he couldn't find it within himself to sit up and tell her not to.

There was a thump behind him, and he tilted his head up to see that Roy had copied him, flopping onto the ground, obviously weary; he mirrored Ed, resting in a lazy sprawl against the ground, head resting beside Edward's.

'Ed!' Sophie demanded, smiling. 'You promised me a story!'

'I did, didn't I?' Ed agreed, smiling. 'What kind of story would you like?'

'Hmm...' she frowned, thinking it over. Beside him, Roy chuckled, and Ed swatted him without looking. Roy's answering yelp was satisfying. 'I know!' She finally said. 'Tell me one of _your_ favourite stories!'

'My favourite story?' he asked her, surprised. 'Are you sure? It's a little long winded...'

'I'm sure, I'm sure!' she pleaded. 'Please tell me, oh, please do!'

'You sounded very English for a second,' Ed smiled. Sophie blinked.

'What's... _Ing-lesh?_ ' she asked, over-pronouncing it as she tried to get her tongue to master the foreign word.

'I'll tell you someday,' Ed promised. 'My favourite story is from a place called Japan.'

'Japan?' Sophie repeated, mesmerised. 'I've never heard of it. Are you making it up?' she gave a tweak to the braid in her hands. 'If you are, I'll get Papa to punish you.'

'Nope,' Ed shook his head against the grass, mirth bubbling up but still under control. 'It's very far away. It's a country made up entirely of islands.' He could see her next question forming in her eyes. 'Islands are pieces of land in the sea. And the sea is a huge body of water.'

'Bigger than Lake Lloronas?' she asked, and Ed vaguely recalled the name of a lake he had seen out west once, on a mission when he was a kid.

'Much bigger,' Ed promised. 'The sea covers most of the world.'

Sophie gave a low whistle, and the sound was so unexpected both Roy and Ed laughed, and after a moment Sophie decided they weren't _really_ laughing at her, so she joined in. Besides, Ed thought as he got himself under control, as the three of them, they had sounded pretty good laughing together.

'But, to get back to the story,' he continued, 'It has some Japanese names in it, so I'll translate them. Alright?'

'Can you just tell us what they mean, and keep calling them their Jopa – Jana – their real names?' she asked, her voice steadily more exasperated until she gave up the pronunciation.

'Certainly,' Ed agreed.

'Now,' he continued, and his voice reverberated off the earth beneath him and back out his throat, the way the Elena of the other world had taught him, 'A long, long time ago, there was only a river, made of stardust and light un-shed by any source.'

Sophie murmured a soft, 'pretty,' before falling silent. Edward smiled, and settled into storyteller mode.

The story was an old one, very old, from the beginning of Japanese culture; when the moon god stole some sunlight from the sun goddess by tricking her, Sophie laughed, and when the goddess of dancing lured the sun goddess out of the cave she was hiding, ashamed, in, dancing a ridiculous dance that made all of the gods laugh, even Roy couldn't hold back a chuckle. And then he finished, his voice fading away until it was buried in the soil beneath him.

The back yard was quiet, only the distant rumble of the city and the breathing of the three on the ground making itself known. Edward heard Roy's the clearest; sometime during the telling of the story, Roy had shifted, and now their heads were beside each other's, Ed's ears level with Roy's throat, and he could hear the deep breaths of someone who was immensely relaxed.

And, beside them both, Sophie's breath was quick with excitement, and it wasn't long before she said, almost intrusively loudly, 'That was so pretty, Ed!'

Her exclamation brought him back from the Zen state of mind that he always got when he told a story; he sat up and smiled at her. 'Thank you,' he said, and he repeated the odd little salute the Elena he had known had taught him – a twist of the right hand that swept elegantly away from the brow into the hollow of the throat. Sophie sat back, an interested look in her eyes, but Roy stood and hustled her off, telling her it was past her bedtime and she was going to _sleep_ tonight, she could see Ed when he got back.

Ed laughed under her breath as she immediately homed in on the 'when he gets back' and demanded to know where he was going, and hadn't Papa promised not to kick him out? He fell back onto the earth, hair sprawling around him, and sighed happily. Whatever mildly angsty mood he had been in before the story had dissipated completely, leaving him with a sense of wholeness that he suspected would be more so once he got to Al.

A part of him clenched at the thought of leaving Roy and Sophie, as it had all day; it was amazing how quickly you found yourself attached, he thought amusedly. They would still be here when he got back.

He would see Al tomorrow. He would see his family tomorrow. Everything was going to be alright. He was starting over again, with _everything_. And he could get his automail checked up, which would be a load off his shoulders.

He looked to his right arm, and winced. On Earth, he'd had to resort to... _crude_ measures in order to make his automail fit with his height. He ran his fingers over it, and _knew_ he was going to get a wrench for this.

Steps across the ground, and Roy was back (sans Sophie). He sprawled down in the same position he had before, and turned his head; when Ed turned his, he found their eyes were level.

'It was a beautiful story, Ed,' Roy murmured, his dark eyes searching the bright ones in front of him. Ed felt his face warm, a curious sensation.

'Thank you,' he answered after a moment, and Roy's sunny smile that came after the gratitude reminded Ed intensely of Sophie.

Roy turned his head back to the sky, and Ed followed suit, searching the sky's few clouds for shapes. He hadn't done that since he was a kid.

'It's all happening so fast,' Ed whispered, half for Roy's ears and half for his own. 'I'm happy – almost _too_ fucking happy – but I'm sad, too.'

'Why?' Roy asked, his voice quiet. 'You're home.'

'I'll miss some people on Earth,' Ed said, his heart squeezing, 'And your wife gone – Izumi dead – it's all a mess in my head. It's as if there is so much good happening, and so much bad, that I just can't fuckin' figure it out.'

There was a soft laugh beside him, echoing through the earth and filling Ed's heart. 'Welcome to being human,' Roy said, and through the amusement was a hoarse tone of grief. 'You'll get used to it eventually.'

'And if I don't?' Ed asked, and there was a tight knot of fear in his stomach. 'What if I'm constantly torn between here and there? Between two things that I love?'

There was silence, and for a moment Ed thought that Roy didn't have an answer. His heart sank, and the earth swallowed it up, leaving him empty.

'Then,' Roy said, and Ed's heart burst from the earth into his chest, settling over his lips to block any words he could summon, 'you focus on now. The past can only sustain you for so long before you need to let it go. Even I'm learning that. Right now, I'm making my way to Fuhrer because I promised Elena. But that won't last forever. I've got to let her go, because holding onto her will only make my life – Sophie's life – in a way, the life of every one in Amestris, once I'm Fuhrer – much harder than it needs to be.'

Ed couldn't speak. He wanted to, but it was as if when his heart had settled over his lips it decided that it didn't want to leave and perched there, refusing to move. In much the same way, his mind was blocked from any sort of cheap platitude to try and make Roy feel better. Which was probably a blessing.

'And soon,' Roy continued, 'I'll be focussing on becoming Fuhrer because I promised you, and because you promised me.'

Ed's mind slid back to the words that had fallen so easily from his lips. _We'll make you king_. Ed stood, and Roy did as well; Ed looked at him, eyes smiling when his lips would not.

'You will be king,' he stated. Something in Roy's eyes flickered – an intense grief, laced with remembrance and a strong gratitude.

'I will be king,' Roy agreed, and Ed's eyes flicked down to Roy's ungloved – _when had his gloves come off?_ Ed thought hazily – hand come up to hang, suspended and poignant, between them.

Words drifted across Ed's mind without conscious provocation – an image of a bare palm and black eyes, and the phrase, _supine and cold_ , resting on Ed's tongue.

Ed placed his hand in Roy's, and there was a visceral sensation that slid down his spine, a burst of warmth that glowed in his stomach and made him absent-mindedly lace their fingers together, loose and trusting.

'You should head to the station,' Roy said, and there was an odd note of _something_ in his voice, a flicker of emotion he was trying desperately to hide. Ed didn't know why; he was quite certain that he wouldn't be able to identify it even if it was in full bloom on Roy's face. It made the burst of warmth burn deeper, but other than that, it didn't feel at all familiar. And what _did_ feel familiar couldn't be true, because – because that was wrong, it shouldn't happen here, not to Roy, he didn't deserve that –

'I should,' Ed replied, and he let their hands fall apart. The warmth grew cold, and the unnamed emotion that Roy was trying to hide flickered again. 'I'll be gone...' he thought about it. 'No more than four days.'

'Take your time,' Roy pressed, an eyebrow raised. 'Why are you in such a rush to get back?'

Ed felt his long diminished temper flare – why or how, he didn't know, but it did. 'I worry about you, bastard,' he growled, crossing his arms and looking away. 'And, more so, about Sophie. I don't want to leave her be _too_ long.'

Roy chuckled, amused. 'Hawkeye's right,' he said, mirth still bubbling up in his voice. 'She's got you wrapped around her little finger.'

Ed coloured and flipped him the finger, setting off toward the house. There was a package with his name on it waiting for him in the hall; he looked at Roy confusedly, who laughed softly, mindful of the little girl upstairs.

'Sophie's idea,' the man muttered, still looking like he wanted to laugh. 'It's yours, I don't know what she put in.'

Ed couldn't tell if Roy was lying, which made him immediately suspect that he was. However, he still picked up the package, soft and worn and wrapped in leather with his name attached on a card written in childish scrawl. Ed nodded and, murmuring a goodbye, he left the house, alone.

The sky was darkening, turning a hazy, midnight blue that was occasionally discoloured by light pollution; the wind had picked up, something he hadn't noticed as he had relaxed in Roy's backyard. It swirled around him, snatching at his coat, and the cool softness caressing his skin only brought the confusion in his mind to the forefront.

That burst of warmth... it couldn't mean what Ed thought it meant. It shouldn't mean what he thought it meant. Amestris may be more socially awake than Earth, but even _here_ , where there was no religion banning it, it was still thought of as unnatural. Men belonged with women, and vice versa; that's the way it was supposed to be. Ed remembered the few times he had seen an openly gay man or woman on the streets of Central; they had been shot dirty looks, as if they were disgusting, wrong.

_He_ wasn't wrong, not to feel this way about men. It was just a part of him, something that he suspected had been a part of him forever. But... he couldn't subject Roy to that. Not now; not when they were both so raw.

The warmth was undeniable, but he didn't have to tell him. It was too soon – Roy's wife had died _yesterday_ , for cripes sake. He would feel the worst sort of awful if he was the one to do that to Roy.

The man was attractive, Ed reasoned. Maybe that was all it was. A moment of lust, something that Ed had plenty of experience with by now. It was already fading, now that he was out of Roy's presence. A fluke, a mistake, it wouldn't last.

He found himself at the train station, boarding his train, flashing his ticket, finding an empty car. He looked down at the package as the train pulled away, and he opened it after a moment of thoughtful consideration.

There were some bits and baubles that Sophie had obviously decided would give him comfort –a pretty stone, a small but thick book, a necklace – but none of those caught his attention.

What _did_ was the long, slender rose that he himself had transmuted that afternoon, with a note in familiar, elegant handwriting.

'Good luck,' it read, the script strangely cheerful, 'and don't come back until you're ready.'

Ed smiled, the flare of warmth returning; he let his head fall into his hand with a rattling sigh.

Oh, he was _so_ screwed.

* * *

 


	8. Chapter 8

* * *

**Sutra Eight: Teikiatsu**

* * *

Roy turned away from the door, a soft smile on his face; the package was actually a gift from Sophie and himself, something that he would deny unless Ed brought it up. They had placed one of Al's novels inside – a book entitled _Criosphinx_ , one of Al's first books – the pretty geode that Al had sent Sophie for her birthday (which had been about a week ago, before – _empty, empty, empty_ ), and a necklace that Al had sent Roy, a soft silver tear-drop etched with flames.

They were gifts that Sophie had selected, and Roy had approved; the only thing that was truly _his_ gift was the rose, which he had attached a note to. It was the partner of the one in the vase in the kitchen, and Sophie had smiled oddly when he had placed it inside – a sort of inscrutable smile that almost seemed to say that she saw something that Roy did not.

He walked up the stairs, feet making no noise on the hardwood; he opened the door to his bedroom and wasn't at all surprised to find that Sophie had crept out of her bed and was waiting for him. He noticed that the vase with the rose was now on his bed stand; Sophie sat, cross-legged, on the white covers, and for a second Roy saw the woman she would become – tall, slender, and her eyes a bright yellow, having grown out of their hazel colours.

'Papa,' she said quietly, and she was again a little girl, looking just the tiniest bit lost. 'You have to sleep tonight, Papa; you're no good to anyone if you're half-dead.'

The words almost made him flinch, but a part of him knew that he had to get over this. The past could only sustain you for so long. He had learned that with Ed; now he had to put it to use with Elena.

'I'm sorry that I'm making you worry, Sophie,' he murmured as he sat down on the bed. Sophie wrapped one of his arms around her, cuddling into his chest with a sound of dismissal.

'Don't be sorry, Papa,' she said into his chest. 'Momma's gone – you're supposed to be like this.' Roy wrapped his arms tighter around her as she continued, hearing the shaky note in her voice. 'But you can't be like this forever. Because I know the truth about you and Momma, Papa.'

'The truth?' Roy repeated, confused.

'You never loved Momma,' she said. 'Not the way Papa's normally love Momma's. You loved her like I love Kristy, or Cousin Anda – she was one of your best friends. But you didn't love her like she was Momma. You loved her like she was Elena.'

'Sophie...' he murmured, almost in warning, but she continued doggedly on.

'You were too dark and twisty,' she asserted. 'Even when you were bright and shiny, you were dark and twisty. It hid inside the bright and shiny, where Momma couldn't coax it out of you. And that was because you didn't love her. Right?'

'Sophie, that's not true,' Roy argued, looking down at his daughter. 'Your Momma and I loved each other very –'

'But not the way that you love Ed,' she argued back, and Roy froze.

'What?'

'You loved Momma like a friend. She was one of your best friends – you had to love her, or you wouldn't have had me. But you love Ed like you would have loved Momma if you hadn't loved him first.'

'Where are you getting this?' Roy asked, shocked. 'Did Riza say something? I never –'

'Papa,' Sophie said, and her voice was scolding. 'I can see it because I know you. Momma looked like Ed, and talked like Ed; she had blond hair and yellowish eyes. She was as close to Ed as you could get, and you loved her for that. But you never loved Momma like you love Ed.' She looked up at him, her yellow eyes blinking back tears, and Roy couldn't say anything.

'He told me he left a long time ago,' she said, and her voice was slightly shaky. 'You must have loved him then, too – you've loved him a long time, haven't you, Papa?'

'Sophie...' Roy said, but that was it. Somehow, Sophie had seen to the root of the matter, something that Roy had buried so deep inside himself that he never had to look at it or consider it. Or, rather, he hadn't.

Now Ed was back – unstoppable, fiery Edward, stronger and wiser than he had any right to be, his soul older than was possible for anyone else his age, who had done so much and gotten so very little in return – the person that Roy had realised that he had fallen in love with when Ed was sixteen, and then lost him for so very long.

'Do you want to know what I named him, Papa?' she asked. Roy looked at her, surprised; she had this thing where she named the people who mattered the most to her. So far, she had only named Gracia (Lady), Elysia (Moon), himself and Elena. And now she was naming Ed –

'I named him Papi, Papa,' she whispered, and Roy choked. She giggled, said something about Ed making the same face, and nuzzled closer. 'He makes you brighter and shinier than I think anyone's ever seen you, Papa,' she said into his skin. 'And now he's my Papi. Because of that. When you saw him this morning, I don't think I've ever seen you so... happy.'

'Sophie,' he said, somehow finding his voice again. 'It's not that easy...'

'Why not?' she asked, frowning. 'It should be.'

'Sophie,' Roy said, his voice slightly sterner. 'Most men don't like other men. Not like you like boys.'

'I don't like boys!' Sophie protested, and her face was so horror-struck as she looked up at him that he had to laugh. 'They're all gross and icky and mean! Girls are much nicer – and much prettier,' she stated, looking up at him. 'Well, except you and Papi. You two are really, really pretty for boys.'

Roy couldn't find an answer for that.

'And besides,' she said, flapping a hand, 'I don't think Papi likes girls like that. It would just be... weird,' she finished thoughtfully.

Roy had to steer this conversation in another direction. And quickly – this was getting too personal, even for family.

'It's time for bed, Sophie,' he said, and tucked her head under his chin. She went without complaint, and within a few moments she was sleeping easily against his chest, her breath rattling out in a soft snore as she relaxed, limp and boneless.

Roy stared over her head, out of the window that was still open from the night before, his eyes wide and unfathomably deep.

How had she figured it out? How had she so easily read him, as if he was her favourite book, something to be opened and to be read without needing to actually read, because she knew all of the words already? She had dug into something he had never truly admitted to himself, and now he was going to pay for it.

How quickly Ed seemed to have replaced Elena in her mind! As if the woman who had birthed her was only a surrogate, a path to Ed, an empty shell in comparison! She could tell all of this within a day, how desperately Roy had wanted him back, how happy he was to see Ed's smiling face and burning gold eyes. What was he supposed to do, now?

Ed was still more than a decade younger. The blond hadn't seemed to have lost any youth; he was both old and young, bright and dark by equal turns – how could someone that complete, that sure and that determined ever want someone as half-broken and cold as Roy?

Not that he was saying Ed was perfect; no one is perfect. But, sometimes it felt like Ed came pretty damn close.

But Roy knew one thing for certain – if this ever happened, if Ed ever agreed to try this, they would have to know each other far better. Ed would have to tell him what happened on Earth – step by step, Roy would have to know. And Ed would need to be told everything about Roy.

Thoughts like these skimmed along Roy's mind until they sank into the ether of his sub-consciousness. His eyes fell closed as the moon rose; the light fluttered across his skin, rippling sensation luring Roy to sleep.

* * *

 _It started simply. A meaningless dream – Roy was playing with Sophie and her new doll (Ed's gift, it had once been a gardener's hat.) Sophie was laughing and running around him in circles; he_ knew _there was a metaphor there, but he felt inclined to ignore it._

_She ran around him and blew a raspberry at his back. He turned around to tackle her –_

_'Sophie?' He felt himself ask. It was strange – it felt less like he was dreaming and more like he was watching a pantomime, something pre-structured and probably entertaining to some but frightening to him._

_She was gone._

_'Sophie!' he called, pivoting at the hip this way and that, but she wasn't anywhere. At least, nowhere she_ should _be._

_He started to look for her, and as he did so, his surroundings materialised and he found himself in his own backyard. Well, his back yard with some additions._

_'Why, in the name of God,' he asked, eyes squeezed shut in irritation, 'Would I put a_ labyrinth _in?' No answer came forth, as he expected, and he began to search, darting down one passageway, taking lefts and rights and straights, doubling backwards once or twice. 'It's even too big for my backyard,' he complained._

_If he was expecting one of those dream moments where the dream suddenly comes under the control of the dreamer, he was sorely disappointed._

_He kept searching, but slowly, a feeling of dread came over him. Where had Sophie disappeared to? What was going on?_

_His pace picked up steadily, from a walk to a jog to a full on sprint that felt like he was running through molasses. He peered down every passageway he didn't take, searching desperately; there was nothing. No swathe of black hair, no flash of yellow eyes, no Sophie._

_He slowed down, finally coming to a stop in the middle of a crossroads. Four passages led away from him, but they were empty. He sank to his knees, suddenly inexplicably tired, and covered his face with his hands._

_'Sophie...' He whimpered. Where could she have gone? Had she disappeared? To where? Even in dreams, people couldn't just disappear without any trace. There was always a clue, a way to find the light in the dark. Right?_

_Suddenly, there were the faint sounds of footsteps, which paused. Then, a voice that Roy had heard in his dreams before, innumerable times whispering over his skin and into his ears –_

_'Roy?'_

_The steps picked up their pace, until they were flat out running; they stopped only when their owner dropped to Roy's side, and hands – one cold steel and one warm flesh – closed over his own, covering his face with comfort. 'Roy?' he repeated, and Roy let his hands fall from his face, where they were enfolded in Ed's and placed on his lap. 'Are you alright? What's wrong? Since when do you have a labyrinth in your backyard? Sophie and I have been looking all over for you.'_

_'Sophie?' Roy asked, and a small hand tapped his shoulder. He turned, and there was Sophie, looking worried out of her mind._

_'Papa!' she said, and her arms wrapped around his neck. 'Papi and I were so worried! I turned around you to hug him and you disappeared!' she sat back on her heels, and the anger and fear in her eyes was enough to kill him. 'You can't do that! Not here, not anywhere! Never again!'_

_'Sophie...' Roy whispered, and he buried her in his arms. Even as he did, he looked up at Ed – his hair unbound, the gold only a few inches shorter, rippling gently behind him. Sophie drew away, and Roy stood; Ed extended a hand, and as Roy took it, the labyrinth melted away, leaving him and Ed and Sophie standing in the backyard again._

_'Sophie,' Ed murmured, his eyes burning softly, setting Roy's skin aflame, 'Where's your doll?'_

_'Molly?' Sophie asked, eyebrow raised high. 'Inside, why?'_

_'Why don't you go get her?' Ed suggested, his eyes never leaving Roy's; Sophie nodded thoughtfully, and ran inside._

_Ed stepped closer, impossibly closer, and Roy felt light-headed. His dreams had never felt so heady, so real; Ed's fingers trailed up his neck and cupped his cheek. One eyebrow arched, a delicate gold curve over burning gold disks._

_Even though it felt more real than it ever had, there was still the dream-like emptiness in Ed's touch, caused by the fact that it wasn't the true Ed. Roy's heart ached with that knowledge, but he couldn't stop his next movement, a soft nuzzling of his jaw into Ed's palm that had Ed smiling in a slightly wistful, slightly amused way. Roy brushed his lips against Ed's wrist, tongue sliding along the skin for a second, and Ed's smile softened._

_'You can't do this anymore,' Ed murmured, and the sound fanned out over Roy's lips. 'You can't leave us behind. Sophie needs you, and you can't keep disappearing into your head.'_

_Roy couldn't reply. Knew he shouldn't. He should have seen that the labyrinth hadn't been there, but there was no going back and he'd given the people he loved heartache. He could only do that for so long. Ed's eyes kept his skin ablaze, and his heart tripped in his chest, a bit like an exhausted runner._

_'We_ need _you. I wish I could make this clearer...' Ed looked away, and the sudden absence of his burning gaze left Roy cold._

_No, he'd been cold forever; he wanted to be warm. Warm, lying on his back beside Ed and Sophie, staring up at the sky – supine and warm, not supine and cold, not anymore. He didn't want to be staring at the sky alone._

_'Ed,' Roy said, and Ed looked back, surprised._

_'Wh-'_

_Roy leaned forward and captured Ed's mouth in a soft kiss, and Roy cursed his dream state for not allowing him to feel it fully. For him being a dream Roy and for Ed being a dream Ed._

_He pulled back, and Ed looked at him through his lashes, an unconsciously seductive expression that warmed Roy from the heart all through his body. 'Roy...' he whispered, and there was a blissful sound in his voice._

_Roy smiled._

_'Ed.'_

* * *

Sunlight struck Edward's face like a battering ram, harsh and undeniable as the train pulled to a grating stop. He sat up and blinked; it was the stop before Risembool, and he yawned hugely (cracking his jaw doing so) before sitting straight and rubbing his cheek.

He'd had no dreams – an unusual thing, for him. Just a deep sense of peace, and what had to be the longest bout of sleep he'd had in years.

For the longest time, he'd been tormented by dreams that wracked his body with pain and his mind with guilt – five years, the five years he spent homeless and alone in Europe before he met Envy and Greed, who had picked him up like a stray cat. The nightmares were full of the faces of left behind friends, all demanding to know where he'd been and why he'd left them. Ed endured them, if only for the split-second of being able to believe he was home and _that's_ why they were yelling at him.

Finally, one night, they had just stopped coming, and were replaced with dreams of longing – which continued until the day he left, dreams of using alchemy and eating out with friends and – once or twice – dreams of arguing with Mustang.

Ed's stomach gave a happy squeeze against all commands by its owner, and he had to force himself not to reach for the rose that lay hidden in the package beside him and finger it, looking out the window and sighing like a girl. This was stupid. He would just have to get over it, before he made a complete idiot of himself.

It was a crush that had persisted far too long, dammit. Weren't they supposed to fade with adolescence?

The train rumbled as it began to pull away from the station, and he adjusted his hood surreptitiously. He felt like a moving beacon – if anyone saw him, at all, they would recognise him, and then...

Well, he'd be fucking up Roy's plans, for one. Something that, ridiculous crush or not, he didn't want to do (because, somehow, going from raw Edward to roasted Edward struck him as off.) Roy had indicated that he had a plan, and when Roy had a plan, you generally went with it. Not that he had ever listened to that logic as a kid, but then again, as a kid he'd never really listened to logic. He rushed in where angels feared to tread and tore whatever frightened the angels into bits.

Ed suspected he was supposed to be less proud of that.

His fingers drummed rhythms on his legs, a nervous habit he'd picked up from Greed, though to a lesser extent. The older man had once taken tea spoons and overturned their cups and started a mini-jam-session in the Welsh teashop they'd been in; a man with his guitar had joined in, and a woman walking by, for no particular reason, had just bought a saxophone. It had been a crazy, mind-boggling half hour before the managers kicked them out. Greed had laughed, said it was worth it, and the two other jammers had introduced themselves as Kenneth and Elena. They'd lost track of Kenneth, but Elena became a close friend – even travelling with them to Morocco before heading home to the United States.

It had been so strange, meeting Elena. She had seemed as vibrant as he had, something that he found most people didn't have. Greed and Envy were the same way, and for a while, it had been the four of them: the four brightest people against the darkest world. He had often wondered who she was here; now that he knew, he wished he didn't. He half-felt that Roy suspected something along those lines – maybe he was thinking that Ed had known Elena. Maybe he had known some other people that Roy would recognise.

The memory flared in his mind, and he stamped it down furiously. _No. Not that. Not again._

He would not remember that, not when he was here and he was safe, and he just _didn't_ have to deal with it. No matter who was asking – Al, Roy, anyone – there was no one he would tell that story to. No one. It didn't matter that it wasn't the dominant one, it would not affect his life here.

With that, he put _it_ out of his mind.

The train was slowing down, now, and a nervousness clutched at Ed's gut.

Fuck, he was too damn emotional these days. It was all _feelings_ and _memories_ and other sorts of _bullshit_ that flooded him. Elegant metaphors and similes were the bread and butter of his days, feeding into this frenzied sort of madness that had become his life. He wanted to smash his head into the back of his seat as he realised it wasn't going to get any better in the next couple of hours.

The train pulled to a halt, and as he stood (collecting the package and hiding it gently in his pocket) he caught a glimpse of a tall man, his hair a sandy brown, who was watching the train acutely; his face was shadowed and back to the sun, but Ed could have recognised him anywhere.

He walked quickly through the corridor of the train, hiding his face under his hood, and stepped out into the harsh sunlight. The man's eyes snapped to him, and he strode over, legs long and stride fast; he stopped in front of Ed.

Ed tilted his head back, enough to show his face to Al. He let his eyes dance across Al's face, the same as Al was doing.

His jaw-line was sharp in its curves, the lines defined as they softened his chin; his nose was rounded at the tip, and his eyes – crinkled with laugh-and-frown lines – were a startling, watery silver. Ed realised the wateriness was from un-shed tears, and the cool waves of Al's regard calmed the hot, sick waves of anxiety that were flooding his nerves.

'Al?' he asked, quiet. The supernova of true realisation – of belief, of hope – exploded in Al's eyes and made them the colour of plasma. His breathing became ragged, and Ed smiled tentatively.

Then he was smacked upside the head, _hard_ , with a book.

'Ow! _Shit!_ ' he shouted, clutching at his head and glaring at Al with watery eyes, wincing as stars danced in front of him. 'What the _hell_ –' Ed paused. 'Okay, I know what that was for. But – _heeeek_!'

The 'heeeek' was the noise made when Al crushed Ed in a hug that would have done Sophie and Armstrong proud.

Al's arms were bands of steel-muscle, making Ed's ribs creak, and he buried his face in Ed's shoulder. Ed leant his head against Al's, his own arms gripping him tightly. He had never thought to see his brother again, and now he was able to hug him, and not as a suit of armour – as a man. Al had picked him up, and a part of him noted he was four inches off the ground; _go figure,_ he thought. _Guess Al will always look like the elder brother._

Behind them, the train pulled away with a clank of gears and rumble of engines; Al set him down, and stepped back. Ed braced himself for another smack from the book as Al's hand rose, but all that happened was Al placed his hand on Ed's shoulder.

There was a light in his eyes, faint and yet completely clear, of doubt; maybe this wasn't real, or maybe Al was going crazy.

Ed tugged off the glove that covered his flesh hand and clapped it over Al's. The back of his brother's hand was rough and tanned, warmth radiating through the cool skin, and both of their eyes noted that their skin was the same shade.

'Welcome home, Brother,' Al said quietly, and Ed closed his eyes in bliss.

* * *

 


	9. Chapter 9

* * *

**Sutra Nine: Nagana**

* * *

'Papa!' Sophie cried, and Roy smiled at his daughter. Today, she was dressed in a spring green jumper, with a scalloped yellow shirt that her mother had picked out for her once and yellow tennis shoes. She wore a bright green barrette that held her hair back, and in her arms was clutched her doll, which Roy had not at all been surprised to find that she had named Molly. 'Papa, what are we doing today?'

He smiled at her, even as his heart clenched. 'You,' he said amusedly, 'are going to visit Riza today. Alright? You'll have loads of fun, I promise.'

She scowled. 'I don't wanna go!' she protested, Molly swinging from her tense fist. 'I want to go with you! Where are you going?'

'I'm –' he took a deep breath. 'I'm going to take care of Momma, alright? I want you to have _fun_ with Riza – she's taking you to the zoo, and out to lunch...'

She frowned thoughtfully, and Roy knew he had her. She loved the zoo, almost more than anything else; the only thing she enjoyed doing more was going to visit Al in the country. She loved Risembool – the hills, the town, her 'cousins'; her 'uncle', 'aunt', and 'granny'.

It was strange, Roy supposed, that he had been accepted so easily by the daughter and mother of the doctors he had killed in the Ishbal Revolution. For a while, he had been certain it was only because he was close to Al that they tolerated him at all; but then Winry herself had sought him out and asked if it was strange, being around them. She had been nineteen, and all of her courage had gone into saying the words; at that point, it had poured out of both of them, the whole story and apologies and rants (on her part) before they began to laugh. It had never been mentioned again, but Roy knew that the waters were clear. Winry had grown, and with that, her compassion.

She understood that it had not been his fault, and so chose only to blame the circumstances. Blame wasn't healthy, but it was infinitely better than hate. Or anger.

Which he was certain Ed was facing rather a lot of right now.

He felt his mouth stretch into a soft smile, and he had to force himself back to the world. Sophie was looking up at him expectantly, and he realised he had missed something. Damn. Alright, time to improvise.

He checked his pocket watch, and was relieved to find that the time was close enough to the time he would drop off Sophie with Hawkeye. 'Time to go!' He announced, ushering Sophie out the door. She protested as she was chivvied toward the car, saying loudly,

'That's not what I asked, Papa!'

'Then what did you say?' He asked, looking down at her. She paused in the middle of the driveway, and put her hands on her hips. It was an unconscious movement, and Roy was reminded, not of Elena, but of Ed.

Well; he knew he had it bad, but not _that_ bad. Not to the point where everything and everyone you see reminds you of them.

'What did you mean, "take care of Momma"?' she repeated, huffing for good measure. 'Momma's gone, isn't she?'

'I – yes,' Roy said, taken aback. She frowned.

'Why do you need to take care of her? Kristy said that the angels did that.'

'We need to take care of her here, too,' Roy explained, and even as he lifted her into the front seat, his heart wrenched uncomfortably in his chest. She really had let go of her mother, something that Roy was still struggling with.

'Okay, I guess.' Her frown turned into a sad little smile. 'I'm going to miss her, Papa,' she murmured, and Roy almost broke. But, no, he couldn't do that here. _Empty, empty, empty..._

'I'm going to miss her too, sweetheart,' he said, and he kissed the top of her head. He was sure it looked very manly, but he didn't care about looks right now.

Right now, he was a father, and his daughter needed him more than he needed to grieve.

He walked around the car, the sun sliding down his shoulders; his shoes made soft scraping noises as they moved across the gravel of his driveway, and his shirt was sticking uncomfortably to his back by the time he slid into the driver's seat. It was going to be warm today; he would have to remember to tell Riza to not let Sophie become dehydrated.

Rolling down the window and instructing Sophie to do the same, he started the car and backed out of the driveway. His fingers drummed absentmindedly on the wheel, the breeze soothing on his heated skin, and it wasn't until the first red light that Sophie spoke.

'Papa?' she asked, and he glanced over at her. She was looking out the window, her pale little hand loosely grasping the top of her window. 'Do you believe in angels?'

Roy blinked. 'Where did that come from?' He asked.

'From what Kristy said,' Sophie said, and the light changed. He eased forward, still listening closely. 'She said that Momma was taken by angels up to Heaven, and that they would take care of her. I asked what Heaven was, and she told me it was a perfect place.' She scrunched up her face. 'Momma left to go to Heaven, and Papi appeared in our backyard. Did Papi come from Heaven? Is he an angel?'

Roy couldn't help the laughter that bubbled up. It wasn't derisive, nor dismissive; it was only amused, and Sophie offered a teeny smile.

'No, Ed didn't come from Heaven,' He said gently after a moment, taking a left. 'He was on a place called Earth. But you shouldn't tell anyone that. Ever. Okay?'

'Kay, Papa,' Sophie promised. 'But is he an angel? Kristy said that angels are everywhere, protecting us. Is Papi an angel?'

Roy smiled at her, and gave her the only answer he could.

'I don't know, Sophie. I don't know.'

A kind of silence fell in the car that can't really be called silence – after all, the engine still purred, cars still passed, people still made noise on the streets and the wind whistled past the both of them in little puffs that were almost irritatingly effeminate. But it was the quietest kind of silence, too; the kind of silence that is unbroken even by thought.

* * *

Roy pulled into Hawkeye's driveway, and the crunch of pavement underneath the tires snapped his focus on nothing as he pulled to a stop. The door opened as he stepped out of the car, Hawkeye walking out onto her front porch; her jacket was tied around her waist, and a skirt fell past her knees. He walked around the car and let Sophie out, who scrambled past him and ran toward Hawkeye, laughing. He smiled. Whatever she said, she would still rather go to the zoo than hang around the stuffy office.

Besides, he wasn't certain that he could have her there. This was the end of it all – the true end all and be all. Elena was gone. And now he would take care of her the way she had asked.

* * *

' _Roy... Promise me one thing, alright?' Elena whispered, lying on her side, her hazel eyes glittering the non-light. 'Just one thing.'_

_She was in one of her moods again – the sort of softly cynical, philosophical, paranoid mood that possessed her on occasion at four in the morning, that prompted her to wake him up and ask him unfathomable questions, as if he was the centre of the world and knew everything there was to know. He felt uncomfortable when she was in these moods, because it was then that he knew most acutely that she loved him, and that he did not love her._

' _Depends on what it is, Elena.' He flashed a smile at her, and it was painful because they both knew he did not mean it. 'What?'_

' _When my time comes,' she whispered, her finger dragging on the sheets between them; there was always a few inches between them, as if his emotions were an insurmountable mountain pass that she fell down, every time she tried to pass it. 'Take care of me, alright? Don't let some coroner or funeral home sew me up and put me in a box in the ground.'_

' _What?' he asked, shock rippling through him. 'Where did this come from? What's going on, Elena?'_

' _Please.' The steady finality in her voice shut him up as only one other person had been capable of. 'Trust me. Please. When my time comes, will you take care of me? I would rather be released by fire than bound by earth. Please.'_

' _I...' Roy wanted to write it off as a dream, but while he was a master manipulator, when it came down to the nitty-gritty with himself, he just couldn't lie. She was as serious as ever._

' _...Alright.'_

* * *

Sophie hugged Hawkeye around the waist with a squeal, reminding him where he was and what he was supposed to be doing. He smiled languorously; he could handle this. It was nothing more than his past going up in flames, and how many times had that happened?

'Sir,' Hawkeye saluted. 'The zoo opens at ten today, so I'll take her to the park until then. Is that alright?'

'That's perfectly fine,' he said, and he winced when he realised his voice was cold. No, he wanted to be warm. Now was the time to do that.

Her eyebrow arched high in a way that he knew was the result of years spent serving under him. 'Good, sir,' she said, and her voice was extra warm, as if to make up for his coldness. He smiled; Hawkeye was a treasure among friends, as Maes had been and as Ed would be. He trusted her implicitly, and she did the same; that was evidenced in her voice now.

'Thank you.' That was all it took. She and Sophie went inside, to get Hawkeye's dog, White Daiki, the son of Black Hayate. Black Hayate had died some years back, peacefully, in his sleep. A few days later, a neighbourhood dog had given birth to what was identified as Black Hayate's pups; Hawkeye had adopted the only white one in the litter, the runt. Now he was healthy, strong, and a good, loyal dog, like his father. Sophie loved White Daiki to death, and he could hear her squeals of joy from where he was getting into the car.

He smiled, before the upturning of lips melted to a soft grimace. It was time.

It was only a few minutes' drive to the funeral home that she had been taken to, where he claimed her and explained her last wishes in as vague terms as possible. The mortician nodded understandingly, and he helped Roy place her in one of the finer coffins left hanging around and placed her in the back seat of the car.

He went through the motions of this without any expression at all. In fact, he didn't have any emotion, either. There was nothing, as she had taught him.

' _You have to be careful, Roy,_ ' she would chide. _'You put yourself in danger every time you go in that office. Remember... "empty" is the key._ '

And it was – he didn't even have to repeat that litany any longer. All he had to do was occasionally remind himself of that one word, and that was it. He was all the way empty now, his heart left hollow with the dispersal of past emotions having to do with Elena and ready to be filled with new emotions. At least, that was the theory.

What he was about to do was probably illegal, but he had never cared about that. In the end, the means are justified, as long as what you did was right.

They had fixed up her face to almost exactly what it had looked like in life. He noticed this once he reached his destination, a small place that he had found maybe two years after Ed had disappeared. A maddening thought, that; he hadn't been back since that day, something that he just couldn't face. This was where he had finally let go, not only of Maes, but of Ed, too. But the return of one meant that this place was no longer his; he knew as he drove into the clearing. This would be the last time he was permitted to come here.

He stepped out of the car and opened the back door, straining to drag the coffin that would have taken four strong men, but he found the strength and situated the wood in the centre. He opened the box, and gave his dead wife one last smile. After all, she'd been wonderful to him in life.

The corner of her mouth wash a little crooked, and he could see where the skin was torn, irreparable, and thus was hidden by her hair. It was fine and almost precisely the same shade of gold as Ed's, and he knew that she must have realised it very shortly after their marriage began. After all, Ed's picture was on most of his team's desks, in an effort to remember the short-tempered man; though, he supposed, it would be very difficult to forget him.

Maybe not for them, but most definitely for him.

So when she had said that she knew who she was to him, he had instinctively avoided that topic. Because he loved her, in the little half-hearted way he could manage, and her in pain was something that hurt him. Nowhere near as much as losing Ed, but enough for him to avoid trying to test those waters, black and acidic that they were. And now she was gone, and there was no emotion other than your basic sadness.

No. There was one more emotion. It disgusted him to say, but it was true; he felt... relieved.

He lifted her gently; she was even lighter in death, something that struck him as odd. Her head lolled against his shoulder, and he balanced her carefully as he shut the lid. It would make a good pyre, he thought, as he set her down. After a moment of thought, he identified the wood as basswood. Excellent; it was a wood that had been long held as a wood of freedom, in ancient lore in the more back-woodsy places in Amestris. He folded her arms over her chest, and after some rooting around he found a lone bloom of narcissus. It was probably just luck, but he thanked the clearing anyway. Her favourite flower... somehow, coincidence and luck didn't cover it. He arranged her hair, and pressed a last kiss to her lips. She was neither cold, nor warm, and she smelled faintly of formaldehyde.

Then he retreated to his car, and, taking a deep breath, slid a glove onto his left hand, and snapped.

Flames rushed forward, fierce and yet somehow gentle, and as she was engulfed by a whirlwind of flame, twenty feet high and whipping about like water stirred up by the wind, Roy swore he heard a sigh of relief.

* * *

 


	10. Chapter 10

* * *

**Sutra Ten: Kemuri**   


* * *

'You fucking _idiot_!'

Ed ducked the wrench expertly, and he thought with a small smile that Winry hadn't changed much in the last fourteen years.

Her eyes were still impossibly blue, and her hair still pale blonde; she was still taller than him by an inch, and she still hid wrenches on her person.

But there were subtle differences in her appearance, her stance, that spoke of the time that had passed. Her hair was a paler blond, bleached by the sun to a corn-silk colour, and her eyes had deepened to a darker blue than he remembered. The wrenches were a better make now, and that little inch, he realised, was actually the fact that her shoes were heeled and her hair in a messy ponytail.

She also looked like she had been crying.

'I can't believe you –' another wrench, and Ed loyally took it in the temple to spare his brother, who was standing behind him. '– you complete and total _assfuck_! You come waltzing into my home fourteen years later, cool as you damn well please – oh, I'm charging you double, you absolute _bastard_!'

And her language had grown more colourful.

'Cut it out, Winry!' He exclaimed, dodging to the side. 'Dammit, I come back and I get beaten up and glommed onto by a kid and yelled at? ¿ _Que mierda es esta_?'

That brought her up short. 'What?'

Ed flushed. 'What the fuck?' he repeated, expecting a wrench.

Instead, Winry looked thoughtful. 'Repeat it again?'

' _Que mierda es esta_.'

'Good, I'm remembering that one,' she said matter-of-factly, then threw the wrench.

This one struck him on the automail shoulder, and there was a dull ringing sound. Winry opened her mouth to say something, but there was a soft voice behind her.

'Mommy?' It was a girl's voice, quiet now but belying strength. 'Who's this?'

Winry froze, then turned, simultaneously showing the girl to Ed. She was shorter than Sophie, but obviously older by a year or so; she was staring at him like he was a ghost, as if she had been met with a creature of legend.

'Oh!' Winry said mock-cheerfully. 'Anda! You're home early. This is your Uncle Ed.'

'Is he the one who made you cry last night?' She demanded suddenly and her eyes (a distinct silver under a white-blonde fall of hair, Ed noted – a near-perfect match up of Winry and Al) narrowed at Ed.

There wasn't time for the mortified Winry to answer, because Anda had marched over, self-righteousness radiating from every step, and kicked Ed hard in the shin. Unfortunately for him, it was the flesh one, and he hopped back, swearing up a blue streak – though, thoughtfully, he kept the swears in Spanish.

'Anda!' Al said, horrified, and tugged the little girl away.

'You made Mommy cry,' she said, and there was pure venom in her voice. 'Lemme go, Daddy – I wanna kick him again!'

'– _hijo de la gran chingada_ –' Ed finished, and set his foot down gingerly. It only twinged at his weight, but it stung a fair bit anyway. Anda glared at him, and he contemplated glaring right back. 'I didn't mean to make your Mommy cry,' he said, trying to be kind.

'It's all in the act, though, innit?' She demanded darkly, and Ed rolled his eyes.

'Look, kiddo –'

She broke away from Al and kicked him again (though, thankfully, she hit his automail leg). 'Dammit!' She swore at him. 'I'm not short!'

Ed blinked, and behind them, Al and Winry broke out into laughter. Both he and Anda whirled, glaring at them.

'What are you laughing at?' they asked in unison, then stared at each other.

'Told you they'd get along famously,' Al said through his laughter. Winry could barely breathe, much less speak.

Ed and Anda stared at the two, then turned to each other. 'Truce?' Ed asked, and Anda's eyes narrowed again.

'Only if you apologise for hurting my Mommy,' she said sharply.

'I never meant to in the first place,' Ed replied quietly, and she glared.

'Bastard,' she snapped, 'Say what you mean!'

Ed blinked at that, and actually took a step back. 'Alright,' he said, putting his hands up. 'I'm sorry. Where'd you get your mouth?'

'From you,' Anda replied, smiling now as if nothing had happened. 'At least, that's what Mommy says.'

Ed snorted. 'Not surprised,' he said, glaring at Winry, who had the grace to blush.

'Mom?' a young male voice asked, and there was a thump as a book bag was dropped. 'Anda ran up here,' the boy drawled, stepping into the room, 'And I – oh.' He paused at the sight of Ed, blinking. 'Are you Uncle Ed?' He asked simply, and Ed nodded. 'Nice to meet you,' the boy said, sticking out a hand. 'I'm Liam.'

'Good to meet you, Liam,' Ed replied uncertainly, shaking his hand. Though he was only a year older than Anda, he could have easily passed for eleven or twelve, and ocean blue eyes smiled out at him under the hair Ed recognised from the mirror – but his was short. 'I'm glad to be back.'

'From where?' Liam asked keenly, and Anda pulled on his jacket.

'Did you bring us presents?' She asked breathlessly.

'Anda!' Winry and Al sighed in unison, and Ed laughed.

'Not this time,' and Anda looked disappointed, 'But next time for sure.' At that she lit up.

'You mean,' she gushed, 'You're coming back? You're not going to leave forever again?'

Ed stared at her; she wasn't old enough to remember him, so how could she have known that he had left for maybe forever? As he took her hand reassuringly and she smiled up at him, he realised that perhaps her fear of him leaving wasn't entirely her own.

'Nope, I'm here to stay,' he shrugged.

'Are you going to live here?' she asked.

'No,' Ed smiled, 'I'm going to live in Central.'

At that, Al looked surprised; his eyes demanded that Ed explain, and Ed shot him two fingers – an old childhood code for _later_. Al looked confused, then remembrance dawned in his eyes and he gave the answer – three blinks.

'Well,' Winry said with a smile, 'Might as well give you a meal before I have a look at your automail.'

Ed winced.

* * *

Roy stood, and he extinguished the blaze with a flick of his wrist. He had sat and watched his wife go up in flames, not out of a morbid desire to see her burn but a need to verify that the relief he felt in the flick and bite of the fire had been real.

There was just peace within him, now – an emotion he had not known in a very long time. Longer than he could almost remember; the last time he had felt any peace nearly so vast as this was as a child. Perhaps younger than Sophie, perhaps older; and he had finally mastered the thrill of fire alchemy. He smiled as he clambered into the car. At least, he thought he had.

But this peace was wider, deeper; near infinite, and not even thoughts that normally brought him pain or made him hesitate brought no emotions to the surface. Only things that were good remained – Sophie and her laughter, the snap and grackle of the energy he held within him, finishing a day of work early, drinking with the team, seeing Ed.

Now that the cathartic flames of his wife's end were extinguished, there was too much good to ignore. Too much brilliance – too much bright and shiny.

He snorted at that.

Not that he wanted Elena gone – far from it. There would always be a sore place in his heart that someone so kind and sweet had net such a miserable end; but not because she had been his wife.

It sounded callous, and he knew; he started the car with that sour thought on his mind, but the rumble of the engine told him differently. He wasn't happy to have lost her; he was happy to have lost the need to pretend that he had cared for her like he was supposed to. He had lost that sense of pain, that he was trying to love someone when he loved another, he had lost the sadness of Elena because she knew.

And Elena, in her own fashion, had loved him so much that she would have been happy to hear that.

He was on the road, but he was still thinking. Would Elena have stepped aside if Ed had appeared a few days earlier, when she was alive? If Ed had, would she still be here? Or would she still be ash on the wind, as Roy had left her?

He shook his head. There was no point in torturing himself with those questions; what was past was past. Nothing would bring her back, and nothing should.

 _But Ed came back,_ the still shocked, sad, miserable tiny part of him whispered darkly.

But in whispering that, it defeated its own train of thought, because Ed had never been dead. Ed had simply passed safely from this world to the next.

 _But all that blood_ , his mind whispered, as he pulled to a stop at a stop sign before continuing on his way. _All that blood in the array, and the twisted knobs of flesh –_

Roy tried to dispel the image of the array that had taken Ed away from him, still vivid even years after it had been cleaned up, but it would not leave. _See_? His mind murmured. _No one could survive that._

 _But Ed came back from the other world!_ He argued back. _He would have had to die there to get here._

_What if he had?_

There was a nameless terror in those four words, drifting through him and touching him with cold, agonising speculation. And he suddenly wished, more than anything, that Ed was with him now to explain and burn away these freezing doubts by his sheer, undeniable presence.

 _Well, you bastard?_ A haughty voice asked, bright and golden, and he felt the first edges of frost begin to melt away. _What are you going to do about it?_

 _Do about what?_ He asked his mental Edward, feeling lost. _What if you did die? What if you'll only be here a short time? What if –_

 _Enough what ifs, you bastard,_ Mental Ed snorted. _Am I ever that straightforward?_

Roy had to admit, for a structure of his own imagination, he had a good point.

 _Trust me,_ Mental Ed said quietly, and Roy was almost certain that, even if he wasn't real, he was intensely embarrassed. _I'm not going to go away._

And then Roy realised that he was at Hawkeye's house and Sophie was waving furiously to him, as if by the wave of her arm she could bring his car to a safe stop.

'Hi, Sophie,' he said with a smile as he opened the door and she ran over. She attached herself to his waist with a flying leap, and he pretended to be winded, taking a few steps backward.

'Hi, Papa!' She said with a bright smile. 'I had fun at the zoo! I got to play with penguins!'

'You played with penguins?' he repeated. Was there a new petting zoo?

Hawkeye walked over, and her face was lightly tinged with red. 'I'm sorry, sir,' she said, and her voice was embarrassed. 'Sophie slipped under the arm of a zoo-keeper and into the penguin enclosure. The manager thought it was so adorable he let her and a few of the other children play with in the penguin pool to their hearts' content.'

...Now that he thought about it, he had dressed her in different clothes this morning. She must have gotten soaked.

'I even got a toy from the gift shop!' Sophie said, and held up a nondescript pile of plush. 'It's a bear!'

It looked so little like a bear that Roy considered saying so, but he cooed over it until Sophie was satisfied, then set her in the car. He then turned back to Hawkeye.

'Any other fiascos?' he asked, smiling.

'No, sir,' she replied, the embarrassment fading, 'just the one.'

'Thank you for watching her,' Roy said.

'Sir...' Hawkeye asked slowly. 'What did you do with...?'

'Elena?' he asked, and he let the twinge of pain at her name show on his face. 'I gave her the release she asked of me.'

'And if we wanted to pay our respects?' Hawkeye pressed, her eyes searching his.

'Pay them to the wind,' he smiled. 'She'll hear you better than if you said them to a stone in the earth.'

It clicked; he saw it in Hawkeye's irises, a flick of understanding. 'Of course, sir,' she said and waved goodbye as he slid into his seat.

They were halfway home before Roy noticed the tension of the silence. He looked over at Sophie, and he felt a shock when he realised she was crying. He pulled onto a side street and parked the car.

'Sophie?' he said gently. 'What's wrong?'

'Mama's really gone,' she said quietly, and Roy flinched back as if struck. 'She's never coming back.' She looked up at Roy, her hazel eyes glimmering. 'I'm scared.'

'Of what?' he asked, and she undid her seatbelt before clambering over the centre console, curling up in the space between his chest and the steering wheel.

'I'm scared,' she whispered, 'That I'll forget I ever had a Mama. I'm scared that someday I'll only have a Papa and a Papi, and I won't even remember Mama's face.' She looked up at him, and his heart broke. 'Don't let me forget her, 'kay? I don't want to end up like Moon.'

Roy flinched at that; Elysia couldn't remember Hughes' face or his voice; she couldn't remember if he wore glasses or not. All she could remember was that he had loved her dearly. Sophie scrunched up her eyes and wiped her tears away angrily.

'I can't cry,' she said. 'I shouldn't.'

'You can cry, if you need to,' he said quietly, and she shook her head in a furious passion.

'No, I can't – I made a promise!' she said fiercely. 'I promised Mama on the wind! I promised her that if you and Papi can be strong, even having done bad things and seen bad things, then I can be, too! I can be just as strong as you!' She glared at him furiously, as if daring him to tell her she was wrong.

Roy was speechless; he could only manage a pacifying nod as she clambered away, still snarling under her breath and clawing at her eyes. He started to drive again as soon as she was buckled in, and he had to resist the urge to stare at his daughter.

She had promised Elena? On the wind? He hadn't planned to tell her anything of Elena's release; at least, not for a good long while. And yet, Sophie had made that promise all on her own – promising to be as strong as he and Ed were.

How on earth could she ever put up with all of that burden? She was such a small girl – how could she know what Roy had been through? Much less what Ed had done. _Even having done bad things and seen bad things..._ he repeated in his mind, turning onto the residential street that had served as home for the past seven years. _I can be just as strong as you!_

She had no idea how strong she'd have to be to come out nearly unscathed from everything he had seen. He wanted to protect her from it all – he wasn't nearly as bad as Maes, but he knew where the man had been coming from. Everything was so simple to a child... he wished it could be forever, but he knew the truth of it.

'Don't worry, Papa,' Sophie said, putting her small hand on the arm. He looked over as he pulled into the driveway; she had stopped crying, but angry red streaks still traced down her pale cheeks, carving their lines into her skin. 'I may never be as strong as you and Papi. But I can try, right? And even f I never get there, I have you and Papi, anyway. You two will take care of me.'

'You've only known him for two days, Sophie,' Roy said seriously, looking at the little girl, still buckled into her seat. 'You can't know that he would –'

'Maybe I shouldn't!' She flared up, glaring at him. 'But that doesn't mean I can't! Maybe he's been gone for a while, but even I know that he's not going anywhere! So what if he went away once? He came back! Papi can do anything – anything! _You_ thought he was dead!'

Roy flinched at Sophie's accusatory words, as surely as if she had slapped him. 'It's not that –'

'It _is_ that simple, Papa!' she retorted, cutting him off. 'You thought he was dead, and you were never going to see him again! Maybe he _was_ dead – did you think about that?'

She sounded far older than her six years – she sounded older than him, despite her reed-thin, high and girlish voice. 'But so what? He's back, and you're going to keep him! He had to have tried to come back so many times...' her voice faded slightly, not from lack of anger at her father, but in pity for Ed. 'And now he's here. Are you really so dumb, Papa?'

'Sophie!' Roy said, shocked. 'You shouldn't say things like that to me! I'm your father!'

'I can't tell,' she snapped back. ' _My_ Papa wouldn't be such a coward.' Before Roy could respond, she added, 'Trust Papi. He's not going to go away.'

Roy threw open his door, still angry, but there was a shiver of – it was almost fear, fear of his daughter. How could she repeat the words that his own fancies had murmured such a short time ago? 'Go up to your room.'

'But –'

'Sophie, you can't speak to me that way, and you know it,' he said, voice clipped and tight. 'I know that right now, everything's confusing, but you can't misbehave or everything becomes that much harder. You understand me?'

Sophie pouted. 'But I –'

'Now, Sophie.'

His voice brooked no argument, and she tugged her doll off her seat as she stomped out of the car and into the house. It was the first time he' ever had to talk to her about disrespect.

'What the hell have I gotten myself into?' he wondered aloud, and missed the simplicity of a few days before.

* * *


	11. Chapter 11

* * *

**Sutra Eleven: Sudeno**

* * *

'What. Have. You. Done. To. My. Automail?' Winry asked through gritted teeth, voice impossibly dark and angry.

Ed chanced a glance at his limbs on the table and winced. He had been driven to desperate measures to maintain his automail on Earth, and the proof of that was written all over the scarred and pitted metal.

Strips of steel were welded into place, lengthening the leg and arm, and there were far more bolts that Winry would have ever used visible all over to hold the limbs together from strenuous overuse. Spliced wires showed through spaces between metal plates, rainbows of copper and other metals spiralling to ports and nodes.

'I'm amazed they worked as well as they did,' Liam said thoughtfully, tapping a wrench against his chin before reaching out and running his hand over the metal. 'It's ugly, but serviceable.'

Ed had learned quickly that Liam, though quiet with a very dry sense of humour, was the genius of the family. He might have even been able to give Ed a run for his money, if he kept going. He aimed to be an automail engineer, and Winry supported his dream enthusiastically, even letting him help with minor repairs. This, however...

'You son of a –' she shot a glance at Liam. 'Biscuit!' She threw the wrench in her hand and nailed Ed between the eyes.

'Ow! Dammit!'

Another wrench. 'Watch your mouth around my kids!' she threatened.

'Can't see my mouth, dip – stick,' he said hurriedly when he saw her deadly glare. 'Look, it's not my fault. You would have been more pissed off if I – Ow!'

'Language!'

'Oh, shut up!' Ed snapped. 'Anda's got a mouth – I don't see you beaning her with a wrench!'

'She's my _daughter_!'

'Wow, really?' Ed snapped, rubbing his forehead. 'Couldn't tell – must have been the good looks. _Those_ came from the Elric side.'

'Did not!' Winry shouted, and threw another wrench he managed to dodge. 'I'm charging you triple!'

Liam was watching with complete and utter bemusement. 'He hasn't said anything I haven't already heard from you, Mom,' he pointed out. 'Give him a break.'

Ed could have hugged the kid.

'I do _not_ swear!' Winry protested, obviously shocked.

'Are you going to fix my automail or not?' Ed interjected hopefully.

'Shut your mouth, you asshole!'

'See?' Liam said.

'Liam, go tell your father I'm about to kill his brother.'

'I can't even defend myself!' Ed protested. 'How is that fair?'

'It's not,' Winry said darkly. 'This is for my automail.'

'Excuse me?' Ed snapped, offended. 'You would have been more pissed off if I came home without it.'

'He has a point, Mom,' Liam added, now smiling.

'See? Even your kid's on my side!' Ed shot, ducking hastily.

'Oh, fine! God dammit – there's your stupid cane, you stupid gimp, and get the hell out of my workshop! I can't believe you –' one more wrench for old time's sake, and she kicked him out, grumbling about "too much work for too little pay" and similar complaints.

Ed picked up the cane she had left for him and used it to stride out of the room with dignity, Liam staying behind to help his mother with the new limbs (she had already declared the old limbs completely un-salvageable, except for scrap metal).

Al was waiting for him just beyond the hall, a curious mix between a choking laugh and disproving _hm_ emanating from his throat.

'What?' Ed asked, his eyebrow arched.

'Only you would come back and immediately get into an argument with Winry,' Al said, a small cluck in the back of his throat betraying his amusement.

'It wasn't immediate,' Ed pointed out, following his brother. 'We had lunch first.'

'In the course of which you managed to insult her biscuits by saying they tasted of machine oil,' Al added, the laughter clear in his voice.

'They did,' Ed replied defensively. Al laughed now, a full-throated laugh that sounded like paradise to Ed's ears, who had lived all these years with no word as to the fate of his brother.

Of course, Al had no word of him as well; but he had managed to move on.

'Let's go before my wife becomes any more insulted,' Al sighed, his eyes smiling while his mouth adopted a serious expression. 'Wouldn't do to have you dead your first day back.'

Ed rolled his eyes, but he could feel himself smiling too. Al lead him out of the house, handing him a jacket because the wind had just started acting up, and up the hill out back, where they each flopped down at the same moment. Ed laughed at that, and Al did too, until they finally ran out of mirth for the slowly picking-up wind to gobble greedily and fling to the afternoon sky.

'What did you mean, you were going to live in Central?' Al asked after a moment.

'I promised I'd help out R – er, Mustang, until he could get back on his feet,' Ed answered, taking care to let his voice remain casual.

Al sat up abruptly, staring at him. ' _You're_ going to live with _Roy_?' He demanded hoarsely. 'You two will kill each other!'

'Because fourteen years isn't enough to mature and get over old animosity,' Ed grumbled.

'It isn't enough time for you!' Al exclaimed, still shocked.

'Jeez, Al, his wife died the day before yesterday,' Ed muttered. 'I dropped into his backyard the day after. The least I could do was offer to help with Sophie until he has things figured out. He needs to figure out day-care, transportation, his own schedule –'

'Someone knows what they're talking about,' Al said, his voice calm again. 'Did you have children wherever you disappeared to?'

Ed blanched. 'No!' he said loudly, then winced as he realised just how emphatic his rejection had been. 'I _didn't_!' he snapped irritatedly when Al began to laugh. 'Can you imagine me with kids? I'd kill them – I'm never paying enough attention to what's not in a book, you know that.'

'But Roy's trusting you with Sophie,' Al pointed out. 'So he had to have seen something.'

'No, Sophie just likes me a lot,' Ed admitted, and scowled at Al's laughter. 'Oh, shut up – you have two, and you married Winry! _Winry!_ Did you _want_ to die?'

'It's been nine years, and I'm still breathing,' Al laughed. 'If she wanted to kill me, she would have done it a long time ago.'

'It could be the biscuits,' Ed warned. Al laughed again.

'I haven't laughed this much in a long time,' he said, a note of wistfulness in his voice. 'I've missed you.'

'I've missed you too, Al,' Ed replied, heart in his throat.

'...Daddy?'

Anda's voice was quiet in the afternoon air, and Al sat up. 'Yes, hon?' he asked, and Ed had to repress a smirk – Al was just a sucker for kids.

'Mommy said she needed you to come transmute a new piece of metal for Uncle Ed's leg,' she said. 'All the ones she has are too short or too tall.'

Ed twitched slightly, but Al paid no attention. 'Is it the front plate or the priority axle?' he asked, standing.

'I dunno,' Anda replied.

'Better go find out, huh?' he said. 'I'll be back in a bit, Ed. You know Winry.'

'Can't believe she lets you transmute her metal stockpile,' Ed shrugged, staring up at the sky.

He heard Al walk away, but there were no accompanying footsteps. He sat up, and Anda was staring at him, a strange look on her face.

'Anda?' he asked.

'Can I sit with you, Uncle Ed?' she asked uncertainly. He nodded, and she sat down beside him. She still had the same look on her face, though, and after a moment of silence he asked, 'Is something bothering you, kiddo?'

'I'm not short,' she seethed. She appeared to consider it, decided that Ed hadn't meant to insult her stature, and shook her head. 'I guess... I'm sad.'

'Why?' he asked, confused.

'Elena's gone,' she said quietly. 'I liked her a lot. I'll miss her, too...' she sniffled, and Ed realised she was crying. 'I wish Soph was here.'

'Sophie?' Ed blinked.

'Yeah,' she said, wiping at her nose with her sleeve. 'We fight a lot, but she always makes me feel better. She takes care of me.' Anda shook her head again, and looked up at Ed. 'You probably think that's stupid – I shouldn't have to be taken care of.'

'Everyone needs to be taken care of,' Ed replied, then froze; wasn't that what everyone had tried to tell him, so long ago?

'I guess,' she shrugged. 'It's weird – we scream at each other, then we make up like –' she snapped. '– that. She's my best friend in the whole world.'

'She probably wishes you were there, too,' Ed smiled. 'She told me you were her best friend.'

Anda gave him a strange look. 'She did?' she asked, voice suspicious.

'I swear on my life,' Ed promised, meaning it. Anda looked at him another moment, then nodded.

'Okay. I believe you.' She tilted her head to the side and pulled off one of the fastest subject changes he'd ever seen. 'Mommy and Daddy always said you were a really good alchemist.'

'Really good?' Ed repeated, affecting an affronted tone. 'I was the best in Amestris. When I as little older than Liam I went on adventures all over the country. I'd _say_ I was really good.'

Anda giggled. 'Mommy also said you have no sense of modesty, whatever that means,' she smiled.

Ed scowled. 'That means I'm going to transmute your mom into a dog,' he said darkly.

'You can't,' Anda said primly. 'It's against the law.'

'I've broken that law a fair few times,' Ed shrugged. 'Besides, I'd never transmute your mom – where would I find a good mechanic, then?'

Anda laughed. 'Nowhere else,' she smiled, 'Because she's the best in the country, if not the world. She's made automail for kings.'

 _That_ was impressive. 'Really?' Ed asked.

'Mhmm,' Anda said, tucking her legs up against her body. 'For the Emperor of Xing, in fact – or, his wife, actually.'

Ed blinked at that.

'She said it was an old friend of yours,' she smiled. 'His name was Ling – his wife needs a tune-up every once in a while, and they won't let anyone else do it but Mommy.'

'That's amazing,' Ed smiled.

Anda stood. 'It's getting cold,' she said softly. 'Come on in – you can tell me about Soph and Uncle Roy.'

'"Uncle" Roy?' Ed snickered. 'Oh, I'm not letting him live that down.'

Anda giggled. 'Daddy said you wouldn't,' she smiled, and she helped him up, holding his arm until he could balance himself with the cane. She then walked with him to the house before pausing.

'Do you think...' she looked up at him, and her tears had returned. 'Do you think Elena is okay, wherever she is?'

'Positive,' Ed smiled encouragingly. 'I once knew a woman a lot like Elena, you know. She was the kindest person I ever knew. And she told me that when you miss someone, you look for them in the wind.'

'In the wind?' Anda repeated sceptically.

'In the wind,' Ed affirmed. 'When you miss someone who's gone, whether they've passed on or just no longer in your life, you ask the wind to carry a message to them, and that you love them. And the wind will take it to them, wherever they are, and it will give you back an answer.'

Anda smiled shakily. 'Can I try it?' she asked.

'Go ahead,' Ed smiled.

'Hi, Elena,' Anda smiled, turning to face the hill they'd just left. 'I don't know if I'll remember you very well, but I know that I remember that you were nice. Very nice – you always loved Soph and me.' Anda smiled harder. 'I know that Uncle Ed says that you're okay, but I don't know. I love you, but you always seemed like you were... somewhere else, you know? So I hope that you're there now. I hope so.' Anda's smile wavered. 'I love you, Auntie Elena.'

A soft wind, different than the heavy gusts of before, swept across Ed and Anda, carrying the faint scent of narcissus and basswood. Anda gave him a bright grin. 'Thanks, Uncle Ed!' she said happily. 'I feel better now.'

She gave him an abrupt hug around the middle and bounced into the house, suddenly buoyed. Ed shook his head after her.

'Maybe I'm better with kids than I thought,' he murmured aloud, and followed his niece inside.

* * *

'Good night, Sophie,' Roy said, pulling the covers up around the little girl.

'...'night, p'pa,' she mumbled, already half asleep in the warm light of her bedside lamp and the last etchings of a summer sunset. Roy smiled slightly at that image – that a little girl with so much fire could be so innocent, so small in the lack of her consciousness.

He reached over and turned the light off, half expecting a protest he never got. He left her room softly, shutting the door behind him with a tiny _click_ as the catch on the door hooked into place.

Looking down the dark expanse of the hallway, he stifled a sigh. The house was nearly empty in the absence of Ed, and most definitely in the absence of Elena.

A tight frisson of pain in his stomach, but he ignored it; he wasn't going to shove his grief into the foreseeable horizon, to be a crutch when he wasn't strong enough on his own. He needed to face Elena before she became a hazel-eyed ghost of his past. He had enough ghosts, and part of him recognised this as the time to lay this particular one to rest.

He pushed his way through the darkness, thick with his thoughts and hidden demons, until he reached his own door. He pulled it open and stepped through, into a pool of last minute sunlight, and shut the door behind him; for a moment, it felt as if he had shut his personal demon court out behind him, but as always, they diffused through the walls to taint the sunlight with their presence. And he was their king.

He snorted at that; he somehow doubted past kings had wanted so badly to abdicate their throne. He strode through the shadows to sit on his bed and stretch out along it.

He lay there for a few moments, trying to gather his thoughts, and finally gave up. Sophie was (disappointingly) right – if he wanted to be any use to anyone, he'd have to start getting more sleep. He rolled over on his right side, back to the light-that-was-no-longer-sunlight (as the sun had since descended beneath the rim of the earth.)

Sleep claimed him, bit by bit, cell by cell, but thankfully it started in on his brain first as opposed to, say, his toes. And then...

Then the dreaming came.

_This time, there was no innocence to distract him from his dream – from the moment that he blinked, he knew he was not awake. He knew this, because Elena was standing there, her smile soft in the light of the dying sun._

_No, Roy asserted, You're not here._

_No, Elena agreed, and her smile was sad. No, I'm not. I'm gone, aren't I?_

_Yes, Roy choked out; his subconscious should have known this would be too painful for him, it should have given him a nightmare of Ishbal, or Ed leaving, something he could handle._

_You can't handle that last one, either, Elena said, and he realised that his thoughts were as loud as his words here. How is Sophie adjusting?_

_She misses you, Roy confessed, looking to his feet and noticing with some interest that it was grass – once again, he was in his own backyard. She worries that she's going to become like Elysia._

_Elena's face crumpled, and she buried her face in her hands. God, I'm sorry, she whispered between her fingers. I didn't look both ways – I could have avoided that car, but I didn't. She looked up, the salt on her cheeks leaving strawberry-red streaks. Now you have to raise her on your own._

_I'd give anything to have you back, Roy said softly. Part of him wondered why he didn't just step forward and hug her; this was a dream, surely he could touch her again? But there was something invisible separating them, more tangible than a wall – something he could never, ever cross. Ever._

_Elena smile at that. No, you wouldn't, and you know it, she said, her smile far from pained – the juxtaposition stark with her tear-stains. You wouldn't give up Sophie. You wouldn't give up yourself. She smiled harder. You wouldn't give up Ed._

_Roy stared, but smiled back, his own smile far smaller than hers. No, I wouldn't, he admitted._

_There's an Elena here, too, she said, and her smile fell a little. She's the dominant one – I suppose that explains a lot..._

_The dominant? Roy repeated._

_The more dominant of the reflections, Elena explained quickly, to avoid confusion. I've been watching her, when I realised that I could go where I wanted. She's been crying a lot since  
Ed died here. Elena's eyes crinkle. There's this glow to her – you can't see it, but I can. It's how we tell them apart. You're the dominant one, and so's Ed and Sophie. She smiled again. I'm glad to see Ed finally made it home._

_And it was here that Roy began to truly believe – he had never told Elena a single thing about Ed. And now... now she knew. She had to be real._

_She started to fade, very slowly, and smiled sheepishly at him. Darn it, she said, still smiling. You figured it out. That means I'm on my way out._

_Roy started. No, Elena! You can't –_

_Sorry, love, but I've got to, she shrugged. No choice in the matter – we all have to move on. Then her face became serious. Please forgive me for leaving you and Sophie._

_There's nothing to forgive, Roy said, glaring._

_Please, she said, eyes frantic as more than half of her was gone now. She tried to extend a hand to him, but her fingers were already gone – all she could hold out to him was a round palm, which faded too. Please, Roy – let me have this, please._

_Roy looked at her, at the fading woman who had shared his bed and his life for the past seven years, and smiled sadly as a faint wind of narcissus and basswood came to scatter her atoms further. I forgive you, he whispered when only her face was left._

_It relaxed, her eyes falling closed in bliss, and finally, only her lips were there, floating, eerie reminders of her once-undeniable beauty. They mouthed_ thank you _, and were gone._

_Then Roy crouched down, and thanked whatever god existed that, if this wasn't a dream, at least he was in his backyard where no one would see the unshakeable Mustang break down into tears._

* * *


	12. Chapter 12

* * *

**Sutra Twelve: Shûtoiuto**

* * *

When Ed glared up at the ceiling, it wasn't because he hated it. No, hate was too simple an emotion for this. _Loathing_ , that one fit much better. Ooh, and _despise_. Despise was a good one...

Of course, he didn't loath or despise the ceiling, either. The source of his ire was currently on the ground floor, welding at _two in the fucking morning_.

The whine was incessant, and Ed tried to put his head under the pillow – which, predictably, did jackshit in the muffling-noise department, but plenty in the choking-Ed department. He pushed it away with a low growl and sat up; seemed he wasn't getting any sleep the night before the reattachment of his limbs.

He smiled into the darkness at that; once they had been his automail, but now they were his limbs, as much a part of him as his nose. His smile grew at that; there, at least, was something for Winry to be pleased about.

She wasn't going to be pleased tomorrow, though, when she realised that the port embedded in Ed's shoulder would probably be too small for her new arm. He looked at the thing ruefully; his skin and muscle had grown around it, and he could actually move his shoulder around, but it didn't change the fact that she couldn't very well cut away his muscle to attach a new port – and the fact that he wouldn't let her. Automail surgery was something he only wanted to go through once.

He lay back down as the whine actually stopped for a moment, breathing a sigh of relief. Perhaps now he could get some –

A knock on his door, and he groaned. 'No rest for the weary,' he grumbled, and levered himself up, reaching for his cane.

The door opened without him, though, and Al stepped through.

Ed didn't know what to think about that. Seeing his brother, alive and so full of brightness, still gave him that sense of bliss and relief he had felt upon stepping off the train. But at the same time, Ed could see that Al's eyes were dim in the darkness, dark with unease.

'Al?' Ed asked of the darkness.

The darkness answered, '...Yeah. It's me.'

'What's going on?' Ed murmured, turning his body to face Al. Then he tensed.

Something was very wrong – with Al's stance, with his breathing, but most of all with his eyes, which Ed know realised weren't dim, but glazed. If Ed wasn't mistaken, Al was drunk.

Al laughed aloud.

 _Very_ drunk.

'Nothing much,' Al said, and Ed marvelled that he was so articulate when drunk. Ed slurred the fuck out of every word he said. 'Just _thinking_.'

'About what?' Ed said guardedly.

'About lotsa things,' Al said. Comically, he hiccoughed – so strange and light, when the room was so dark and Ed could smell alcohol from his perch on the bed. 'And I think we should talk about them?' This last was posed as a question for no reason Ed could see.

'How about we go sit outside on the porch?' Ed offered, hoping the night air would calm Al some.

The shadow that was Al's head, the silver eyes winking, nodded before disappearing out the door. The silver eyes reappeared, and Ed winced, reaching for his cane, as Al demanded petulantly, 'Coming?'

Ed stumbled to standing, nodding, and half hopped, half levered himself out the door after Al's retreating form. The hall was, if anything, darker than his room; the whining from the welding had been gone for some minutes, though, so Ed counted his blessings.

It didn't take long for him to hobble out onto the front porch. For a moment, he couldn't see Al anywhere; the porch was undeniably empty, and Ed felt a rush of panic. What if Al had wandered off? What would he do? He couldn't run off after him; it had been challenge enough to manoeuvre the stairs as quickly as he had, but he somehow doubted he could search the property alone, in the dark, missing his leg and arm.

A lump on the lawn caught his attention, and he sucked in and released a sigh of relief; Al was sprawled out on the grass, seemingly fascinated with the sky.

Ed wobbled over before falling with a cushioned thump to the earth; he set the cane to the side.

'Were the stars the same there?' Al asked, and Ed jumped.

'No,' he said, remembering. 'They weren't. The Pole Star there indicated the North, not the South, for starters. They have the reverse of ours – wait.' Ed looked down at Al, confused. 'I never said I wasn't here.'

'It's in your eyes,' Al said, his hand extended as if he was trying to capture the stars in his frailer human fingers. 'Amestris wouldn't have changed you. You move differently, you talk differently – this morning you were swearing in a language I've never heard of. There's nothing like it here.'

…Ed had to admit, he was greatly impressed by Al's articulateness as a drunk. 'But where else could I have been?' Ed challenged.

Al gave him an unimpressed look. 'You focus on stupid stuff sometimes, Brother.'

Ed bit down the answering squawk and tried to look Al in the eye – hard to do, because he kept glancing to the stars. 'Alright, fine,' he groused. 'I was somewhere else. It... promise to believe me?'

Ed wasn't sure why he put that in – some subconscious need to know Al supported him. 'Of course, Brother,' Al said, looking surprised – his eyes were curiously sober for a moment. 'Where were you?'

'I was... I was in another world.'

There was a silence, only injured by the passing wind, which made soft, almost-caress-stabs in the dark to snap the grass back and forth, the sound comforting and familiar.

'Tell me about the stars,' Al demanded suddenly.

'About... the stars?' Ed repeated, baffled.

'It's not real, yet,' Al explained, looking at Ed. 'Lie down on the grass, and tell me about the stars. Tell me where there were other constellations, and why the Pole Star pointed north, and how sailors charted courses with different stars to guide them. Tell me about the countries you visited, or kingdoms, or however they're organised. Tell me about the people.' Al's eyes sparked at this one. 'Tell me about the people you hated, and the people you loved, and the people you made friends with and the people you stabbed in the back.'

'That's a lot of telling,' Ed said, mouth already aching in anticipation of the talking he'd have to do.

'We have a night to fill,' Al argued back.

'And what about you?' Ed charged, and though Al's look was sharper, he knew his own look was fiercer. 'Tell me what changed here – tell me about Anda and Liam, tell me about your friends and loved ones. Tell me about how the world has changed, and how the stars have moved –'

'Roy can tell you that,' Al said dismissively.

'Maybe,' Ed shot back, 'But I want to hear about _his_ life from him. I want to hear about yours from you.'

Al smiled. 'I'll trade you,' he offered, and in his smile Ed saw the ghost of a small, chubby child – one who didn't look unlike Anda – his face shining in curiosity when they pored over alchemy books, Ed turning the pages as they sat in their father's oversized chair.

'Deal,' Ed smiled back, laying down, and they started.

Ed swapped him stories of the constellations as he remembered them; Al told him about the State's recent interest in power from the sun and transmuting plants to create electricity. Ed related to him the story of Greed, Envy, and Elena, and Al reported dutifully on the well-being of Russell, Fletcher, Ling and many others they had met in their travels as children.

Ed spoke at length on the various jobs he had served during his time on Earth, and Al told him of his modest success as a novelist and local alchemist handy-man. That led inevitably to the discussion of other worlds in general; Ed tried unsuccessfully to steer the conversation away from this point, but before he could, Al asked _it._ The one question that Ed didn't want to face and knew was coming up.

'How did you return me to me?' Al asked, staring between his outstretched, splayed fingers to the heavens. 'I know that there was an array, and that it looked rather horrific, but I honestly can't remember anything until about three weeks after you were gone.' His face darkened. 'They said I was in shock, but I think I just didn't want to remember.'

'I'm sorry.'

'That's not an answer.'

Ed sighed; it had been easier when Al was stone-drunk and he could bluff his way through it. But with every story, Al had grown more sober (which, if Ed was honest, he was jealous of. He wished he could recover from intoxication so easily). 'I'm... not sure you want it,' Ed admitted.

'Yes, I do,' Al said stalwartly. Ed sighed.

'You have to promise not to hit me.'

'I won't hit you. If you don't deserve it.'

Ed sighed again, this time rolling his eyes as an extra _soupçon_ of irritation. The irritation fell away, however, as he sucked in a breath, readying himself. 'I fully intended never to live beyond that array,' he confessed.

As he'd expected, Al sat up and punched him _hard_ on the shoulder. In fact, it hurt like a bitch, but Ed just sucked in air and held it there to quell any noise he felt inclined to making.

'Why on earth did you think I would want that?' Al demanded.

'It's practically what happened,' Ed shot back. 'Look, if you want to hit me, save it. I'm not done.'

Al lay down again mutinously.

'I intended to trade my existence for yours, but the Gate offered me a choice,' Ed continued, once he was certain a still mildly drunk Al wasn't going to mutilate him. 'I could give up my existence and die, or I could give up my existence and go to Earth.'

'So how are you back here?' Al said, instantly homing in with what Ed had feared would be the one flaw in his plans. 'Shouldn't I be dead?'

'No. I gave up my body on Earth to come back here, so I paid for one existence with another,' Ed explained. 'I know it's confusing, but I think I've got it figured out. So I left Amestris, and gave you your body; in return I was stuck on Earth. I think it has something to do with the deaths going on at the time; there was a major war, so there was plenty of space my soul could replace. Here, though...' he paused. This was the part where it got not only tricky, but potentially unbearable.

'I killed myself there – don't you dare hit me until I'm done, Alphonse Elric, I know where you live – to return here, thus giving up my existence there for one here.'

'But there wasn't a space for you here,' Al said confusedly. 'We haven't been in a war for ages, and there haven't been any –' his sudden silence and stilled breath said it all.

'I'm frightened,' Ed said after a few moments, speaking the words that served to condemn him if he was right, 'that Roy's wife is dead because of me.'

Pure silence.

'Oh, God, Ed,' Al whispered, horrified. 'Is there any way to know?'

'Not that I know of,' Ed sighed. He looked at Al, then away. 'What if it's true, though? I killed an innocent woman. An innocent woman who meant a lot to a lot of people who mean a lot to me.'

'That's a lot,' Al said, and Ed realised he had to be at least half-way drunk still, because Al wouldn't make such a bad joke. 'Listen,' Al said, sitting up again. 'I don't think that was it.'

'Why?'

'Because the Gate wasn't giving you anything by sticking you on Earth, was it?' Al said sensibly. 'You gave yourself for me, so I was here and you were there. But to get back here, you gave yourself for yourself – thus, you can only get yourself in return. The change of scenery can't mean too much.' Al lay back down before speaking again. 'Only one thing's bugging me about this, though.'

'And what's that?' Ed asked, mulling over the new theory in his head.

'Why did you show up in Roy's backyard?' Al said. 'It does lend credibility to your original theory, but if that was true, why didn't you show up at the sight of Elena's accident?'

Al's voice was too casual when he said "accident". Ed winced accordingly. 'I don't know,' Ed sighed, then scratched his head. 'It makes no sense.'

'Well, where did you show up on Earth?' Al asked, studying the stars again. To the east, a ribbon of light blue was making itself known; they had talked their way into the wee hours of the morning.

'A church,' Ed said, making a face. 'In the middle of downtown London – had weird stone coffins, was shaped like the sun. London's a city,' Ed added, for Al's benefit. 'There was no reason – I was just there.'

'And what was your last thought before the Gate put you there?'

'That I hoped I landed somewhere safe,' Ed said, and made another face. 'It was safe, I suppose, but the Gate has an excellent sense of irony.'

Al looked thoughtful in the faint light of morning. 'And what was your last thought there?'

'That Roy would laugh his ass off at me if it turned out I was wrong,' Ed said, and turned red at Al's sharp look.

'Then that's it,' Al said, sounding final. 'You weren't responsible for Elena's death – it was an unfortunate coincidence, nothing more. The Gate was just putting you where you told it to.' Al gave a smile before clambering to his feet. 'And Roy wouldn't have laughed at you.'

'What?' Ed blinked.

'I think he was almost as devastated as I was,' Al nodded. 'He was the one who found me and the – the array,' Al said, for the first time in hours faltering. 'He was never the same – quieter. Seven years later he met Elena and married her, but he wasn't the same person anymore. It was like Ishbal had happened all over again, Riza told me.' He shook his head. 'Apparently it was a horrific experience for him – he never quite got over it. The only times I've ever seen Roy look anything like the man you knew was when he was visiting Winry and I. And then it was only when Elena was with the children.' Al looked to the east, obviously thoughtful. 'I wonder why that is...'

He shook his head. 'I'm going to bed,' he announced. 'You should, too. Oh!' And he smacked Ed hard upside the head.

Ed snarled his displeasure, but watched as Al left him. He considered falling asleep where he was, but eventually stood with the help of his cane and hobbled back inside.

As he passed one of the windows, though, he realised he was smiling.

* * *

 


	13. Chapter 13

* * *

**Sutra Thirteen: Bôseki**   


* * *

Roy watched Sophie dash around the yard with something like envy. Her voice rang out, bouncing off trees and the lawn chairs Elena had purchased when she was two, as she spoke the parts of what seemed a very complicated game – every other sentence was a 'Yes, your Highness' or 'No, my Lady', which seemed to make her own character pleased.

Molly the doll sat on her shoulder like some absurd parrot, and though it was clear that she had a part to play – there were pauses where it appeared Sophie was listening hard, straining to hear non-existent words – it wasn't entirely clear what it was.

Roy rolled his eyes; Sophie had seemed completely un-phased by her grounding, seemingly content with her now-featureless weekend; two more weeks until her school closed for the summer, and then he would need to find someone to care for her during the day. It wouldn't be fair to pile all of that on –

Roy's mind screeched to a halt, and he stifled a sigh, running a hand through his already unkempt hair. He hadn't even combed through it today, only taken a quick shower and a quick shave. It was a tangled mess of black strands, and when his hand pulled painfully on it he gave up.

Since the dream of Elena (had it only been last night?) he had been unable to even think E––'s name, much less try to finish working out the bare schematic that had bloomed in his head when E–– had promised to come back into the military.

If that was even the right thing to do anymore.

Roy breathed deeply, then stood. 'Don't go anywhere, Sophie,' he called. 'I'll be back in a minute.'

'Kay, Papa!' Sophie replied with a regal wave. Despite this, she looked more like a six year old than she had in days. Roy paused and tried to figure out why that was. Her cheeks were flushed with the exertion of running and speaking at the same time, her long hair was in a messy braid she had done herself (Roy had smiled when he had seen that she left some bangs in the front), and there was a bright grin as she turned back to her game. She looked... unworried. That was it. She wasn't worrying about him.

That should have felt like less of an accomplishment.

He turned and went into the living room, searching for a pad of paper and a pen; a habit he had fallen into when he had still been a dedicated alchemist and never shaken. He found them beside the bookshelf and returned outside, sitting down in one of the chairs.

He knew that he couldn't think E––'s name, much less say it aloud at the moment. But perhaps he could write it.

Starting with the foolproof story that meant E–– would be able to come back without raising holy hell.

What kind of mission would draw E–– away for fourteen years? Few people knew of his search for the Philosopher's Stone, but enough knew that it couldn't be about that. They would ask why the genius hadn't come back with a case full of them – which, knowing E––, he would have done.

But what else was powerful enough to lure E–– away from his brother, theoretically?

Roy sucked in a breath. Of course.

Amestris hadn't been in a war for sometime, but shortly after Ed had left, Areugo had closed its borders permanently to all Amestrians in order to preserve trade relations with the rest of the world. So it was perfectly possible that, legally and financially cut off from the rest of the world, Ed hadn't been able to escape. Not kept as a political prisoner (tempting, but too many people's eyebrows would be raised) but in hiding so he wouldn't be.

And the original mission?

Roy smiled. Easy.

To investigate the at-the-time-highly-advanced applications of non-alchemical energy within Areugo's borders. Ed probably would have wanted to go on that mission, anyway, had it been available to him. And because it technically broke Amestris' treaties with the rest of the world, few people other than the Fuhrer would have been made aware of it – if anyone else had been made aware at all.

He scribbled it down, then sucked in a breath – not only had he thought Ed's name several times, he had managed to write it.

 _But why is it so hard to think of him anyway_?

Then, as if in answer, a snippet of Elena's voice floated up from the dusty cabinet he locked all his dreams into in the back of his mind.

_She's been crying a lot since Ed died here._

Sophie's voice – in his memory, thank God – spoke up as well, blending with her mother's.

_Maybe he was dead – did you think about that?_

His own voice, lost and alone sounding. Right after he had released Elena.

_What if you did die? What if you'll only be here a short time? What if –_

_Enough what ifs, you bastard._

And as if they were the same thought, Ed's voice blended into his own, challenging him. No matter that it had been Roy's own mind that had conjured up the voice – it had been enough to quiet him when he had first thought this, and it was enough now.

He set the pad of paper, with its scant paragraph scrawled in black ink, aside and took yet another deep breath.

Then he took in a sharp gasp.

'Sophie?' He said, taking great care to keep his voice from shaking. 'What are those?'

'Dollies!' Sophie said cheerfully.

Scattered about her were perfect replicas of Molly – down to the muslin dress and the large, vacant eyes. Down to the rose red cheeks and the gardener's hat.

Made out of dirt, they sat in a large circle around her, and now that he looked closer, they had small differences – different hair, different eyes, different cuts of dresses. She sat among them, a queen among peasants, marked so by her status of being alive; Roy wanted to look away, but could not for his daughter's sake.

'And – and where did they come from?' he asked, struggling to remain calm.

Sophie picked up the original Molly, her face faintly bemused, and lifted up the dress so that Roy could see the bright red array inked on the cloth. 'It's on the doll,' she said, then pointed to the dirt. Roy could see the faint glimmer of used arrays, still too fresh to have faded completely into the earth. 'I drew it on the ground, Papa, and touched it – and it worked!'

Her face was bright and happy, proud and lit from within, and Roy was terrified.

'Can you undo them?' he said, and she frowned.

'Why, Papa?'

'Just – just do it,' he said. 'Molly's enough, okay?'

'Kay, Papa,' she said, puzzled, and took each doll and rubbed them in her hands; they crumbled to rich, coloured soil that she scattered over the lawn, the original Molly again sitting on her shoulder as she muttered something about returning the earth to the earth.

What kind of child could see an array, copy it down, and make it work? How had she done it – made a perfect circle, copied the symbols, and actually made it work in _dirt_?

One kind of child, and Sophie had never even given the slightest interest in alchemy before this, much less the feverish study that Ed was reputed to have given as a child. But she had done it.

'Can I see Molly, Sophie?' Roy asked, and she brought Molly over, biting her lip. Roy checked the array, and frowned.

It was absurdly simple – definitely easy enough for a child to reproduce, but the lines were too thick and unwieldy. Could it really be Ed's handiwork? Something in Roy doubted it, but something larger was snarling in anger. She was too young to be exposed to alchemy, in his opinion, and he had only intended to start teaching her if she asked.

'Is something wrong, Papa?' she said, frowning.

'Nothing, Sophie,' Roy said, and handed her back the doll. 'But don't do anything like that again until I've had a chance to talk to Ed. Okay?'

'Kay, Papa,' she said cheerfully, and skipped off with Molly dangling from her left fist.

Roy rubbed his forehead exasperatedly. Whatever the array had come from, he didn't like it. He didn't like the doubt creeping in from under his gut, and he _definitely_ didn't like to think that Ed had put alchemy – something that the man _knew_ was dangerous in inexperienced hands – within the reach of his six-year-old daughter.

Clenching his teeth, Roy checked his pocket watch and went to make lunch for Sophie.

* * *

'A perfect fit,' Winry said proudly, sounding tired from her all-nighter.

Ed felt like giving her exhaustion a "hear hear", but refrained; she'd probably think it was sarcasm about the perfect fit, and hit him with a wrench.

Al was still sleeping upstairs, and the kids had bolted out the door the second breakfast was over; Ed wished he could have followed them, but instead he hobbled into the work-room and let Winry poke and probe and make final adjustments.

'Absolutely perfect,' she repeated, and pulled away with a smile. 'Granny will be here soon to help with the re-attachment, and –'

'What?' Ed interrupted, baffled. 'Isn't she a million years old now? What is she doing still –'

A sharp hand flew out from behind him and cracked him soundly across the head, making him almost bite his tongue. He flew into a flurry of Spanish swears (Spanish and English being the only languages that had stuck with him from his travels on Earth) as he rubbed the back of his head ineffectually with his left hand. Granny Pinako stepped out from the door behind the cot, glaring.

She hadn't changed much, despite looking like she had shrunk by a factor of two; the bun was a little whiter, maybe, and her glasses a bit thicker, but she looked for the most part like she had just stepped out of his past.

'Good to see you finally grew taller, Edward,' she said briskly, before going to examine the new limbs and declaring them satisfactory.

Ed couldn't find words to say.

'Ready?' she said after a moment, picking up the arm. 'One at a time, or –'

'Both at once,' Ed said in unison with her, and she smiled, shaking her head.

'Don't know why I thought _that_ had changed,' she said, and aligned the connector with the port as Winry did the same with his leg. He didn't know why he had thought they wouldn't fit the night before; Winry had obviously measured the ports, and he hadn't paid attention.

'Three,' Winry said, bracing her shoulders.

'Two,' Pinako added, face screwed up in concentration.

'One,' Ed murmured, and the other two were so startled that they actually went on his count and connected the arms.

The pain was brighter and less inescapable then it had been on Earth, sharper than he had ever remembered, even that first time. Hell, the first time felt like he was receiving a bruise in comparison to this – this –

He might have screamed, he might not have; he may have clenched his fist so hard his nails ripped into his his skin, he may not have; he may have thrown his head back and cried out for the familiarity of it, but if he had a choice in the matter, he would have done none of that. He would have relaxed. He would have breathed.

It was the first _truly_ familiar thing since he had returned. Even the alchemy felt foreign in comparison to this – the reminder that his life had truly begun with pain and would continue to be stung by it. Sometimes, he supposed as he spiralled down from the pinnacle of anguish to a more throbbing resilient pain, _I need to be reminded._

When he found the strength to open his eyes, he found himself at the mercy of the gaze of the two women before him, each of their faces more solemn then he had hoped for.

'Did – did something go wrong?' he panted, and was pleasantly surprised that his voice wasn't hoarse and raw from screaming.

'You didn't make a noise,' Winry said, her voice a monotone that Ed didn't like.

'At all,' Pinako added unnecessarily. 'You just closed your face and took it.'

'So?' Ed asked, defensive as his breath began to steady.

'You've grown,' Pinako said simply, and left, waving a goodbye to Winry before disappearing through the door. For the first time Ed noticed that, beyond her appearance, she was _old_.

'When can I be up and going?' he said, sitting up. The joint of his right shoulder whined and popped in protest, but he ignored it.

'Knowing you?' Winry said, voice suggested that she doubted herself on this count. 'You can be on your way after dinner.'

Ed blinked. 'Winry, I just went through an automail surgery,' he said, feeling like the cautious one for once.

'Ed, you just sat silent through an automail surgery,' Winry replied in the same tone, and glared. 'Sleep, dipshit. I'll wake you up when it's time for lunch.'

And she was out the door, her eyes curiously shiny.

Ed watched her go, surprised, but promptly ignored her edict in favour of examining his new limbs.

Far more silver and bright than he was used to, it gleamed and curved and bent much more smoothly than he ever remembered the original automail doing. There were less visible rivets and nuts, less wires and more seamless plates that flowed into one another. Winry had perfected her art in the last fourteen years; it looked less like an automail arm and more like an arm that had been painted steel-and-chrome.

Lifting the blanket with his right hand and luxuriating in the sense of smooth movement, he checked his leg and found that, unsurprisingly, it looked much the same. There was even an sort of artistry in the construction – dips and curves where muscles would have been had it been a living leg, defined ankles, better joints. He wiggled his toes experimentally, and grinned when they moved without hesitation. Excellent.

Well, then, the only experiment left was standing. He pushed himself off the bed and wobbled dangerously, his balance off; but then he closed his eyes, and breathed, and found the same sort of lopsided grace he had missed from his teenage years. When he opened his eyes, he found Liam and Anda in the doorway, watching him silently.

He looked at them as well, and for a moment he thought he saw a flicker of fear in their eyes; but no, the next instant it disappeared and left behind an emotion Ed wasn't very familiar with but could name all the same.

'I'm glad you're my uncle, Uncle Ed,' Anda said simply, and the two of them turned and left, small smiles haunting the corners of their mouths in a way that reminded him painfully of a young boy and the way _he_ smiled, before he was lost to a behemoth of steel and glowing red eyes.

Ed reached for his shirt and jacket, trying hard not to remember what he himself had looked like at that age; besides. Time to test what he could do.

* * *

 


	14. Chapter 14

* * *

**Sutra Fourteen: Sawagi**

* * *

Step, kick, twist, punch; leap back, duck, twist, curve, flip, _again_.

Al stepped back, his face red with exertion and more than one bead of sweat rolling down his forehead. He had recovered nicely from his drunken bout the night before, Ed noted irritatedly, and threw another punch.

'Did you never let up training _once_ , Brother?' Al demanded, easily ducking.

'Never!' Ed said, and found himself laughing as he twirled away, only to dart back and duck beneath Al's leg.

The automail had taken him so little time to get used to – a few hours, no more. They were lighter than Ed had ever imagined, moved more fluidly, had greater dexterity; the arm was much closer to his real arm in weight and size than it ever had been before. He'd never been able to write well with his automail hand, due to the inherent clumsiness in the metal – it would be interesting to see if that had changed.

Winry watched them from the porch with a dark glower on her face, and Ed could nearly hear the rant she was keeping inside herself at the moment. _You idiot, you could strain the muscles and then all the fancy automail in the world wouldn't help you if you got into a fight! I can't believe you're so reckless and stupid and – *insert wrench here*._

He suspected, however, as he ducked a blow from Al and tripped him with his flesh foot, that she was keeping it within because Anda and Liam were standing beside her, Anda with her hand tangled in Winry's apron. They were watching him with the same solemn expressions that they had worn when he had stood, minutes after the reconnection, and there was still that pride in their eyes, as if they were seeing him for the first time as a person, not a legend.

Al finally got the best of him (he always did, the little bastard) and pinned him to the ground, panting from exertion but smiling like a fool. He stood amid cheers from his daughter and son and extended a hand to Ed, still grinning. 'I'd say you're used to them,' he said, and there was a bright, happy note in his voice.

'It's not hard to get used to excellent craftsmanship,' Ed said, and was beaned in the back of the head with a wrench for his efforts.

Liam and Anda were giggling when he turned to Winry, water collecting in the corner of his eyes, and glared.

She glared right back, and even had another wrench in her hand waiting another smart comment. But the apples of her cheeks were flushed dull red, a sure sign of her pleasure, and he cocked an eyebrow, waiting for her to give in.

'Oh, stop that,' she said, dropping the wrench into a pocket of her apron. 'You look like Mustang when you do that.'

Ed dropped the eyebrow in mock horror, and the kids laughed again. She sighed and rolled her eyes before pointing to the door. 'Go get your stuff,' she said, sounding exasperated with his very presence, 'I can't keep you here after a performance like that.'

Instantly, Anda began to whine and plead with her mother to make Uncle Ed stay longer, but Ed passed her by quietly enough that she didn't notice him.

He realised that someone else had when Liam appeared at his side up the stairs.

'I can't believe you recovered so quickly,' Liam said, keeping up easily; he was much taller than Ed had been at that age, or Al would have been, but his face was the same round frame that Ed remembered from his childhood, his eyes brighter with a sort of grounded respect that Ed couldn't remember ever seeing in a child's eyes. 'That was amazing. I – I wish you could stay, though.'

Ed smiled as they came to the top. 'I have a promise to keep,' he said, and remembering the pride of similar little boys, took care not to 'notice' the blush on Liam's cheeks. 'But I'll come back, I promise. You can bet your bottom cen on it.'

Liam smiled, gratified, and paused at the doorway of the guest bedroom. 'Do you need help?' he asked, then added, 'Packing, I mean.'

'I came here with only what's in my pockets,' Ed said with a grin. 'I'm alright.' He frowned, though, as he slung his deer-brown jacket around his shoulders and the small package from Roy and Sophie thumped against his thigh. He pulled out the book, written by Al, and looked at it curiously. 'I never did ask Al about this...'

'Oh, about his books?' Liam said, then nodded eagerly. 'They're really cool. Most of them are set in a place that's never seen alchemy, or even heard about it!' Liam looked at Ed brightly, a clear love of books shining through his sea-glass eyes. 'Isn't that strange?'

Ed smiled. 'Oh, most definitely,' he said, and let Liam guide him from the room, chattering about the novels.

* * *

Roy smiled as he saw Sophie off to the bus; she waved cheerfully to him before turning to talk with her best friend Kristy, a small girl with glasses and red hair perpetually in pigtails. Roy smiled in response until the bus was out of sight, and took up his jacket; he kept it on his arm, though, instead of throwing it on. The June morning was unusually warm for Central, already creeping into the seventies in the early morning hours, and it wasn't looking to get any cooler as the day continued to progress.

He wasn't really thinking about that, though, and when he had started the car and driven onto the road, he wasn't headed in the direction of Central Command.

He drummed his gloved fingers on the wheel, watching the road with the practised air of the constantly scheming, and tried to consider his destination in less of a mixed light.

The Central train station had always been a bit of mixed bag for him; it was both a place of loss (many of his colleagues, some of whom he'd been fond of, had left on trains never to return – the victims of the battlefield or, in Ed's case, sheer bravado) and joy (many of his colleagues, the majority of which he'd been fond of, had returned whole and healthy, if a bit mentally scarred). Since he had received the telegram from Ed last afternoon, it had an added weight of uncertainty attached.

He was happy to know Ed was back again – he took a moment to carefully lock away the reasons _why_ , as he didn't want to face them this early in the morning – but there was the matter of Sophie's doll yesterday morning that haunted the backs of his eyelids and had awoken him, stricken with the images of dolls with glinting, soulless eyes, in the middle of the night. And the uncertainty of _that_ was worth just as much as his destination's.

He didn't _want_ to believe that Ed had put the danger of alchemy in his daughter's hands, but what other recourse was left him – the evidence was sitting on his kitchen counter at home, where he'd extracted a promise from Sophie to leave it for the day. A niggling doubt remained in his mind, but he couldn't tell if it was genuine or the result of stressors in the past few days. He hated doubting himself almost more than he hated doubting Ed, but what could be done? Sophie had raised dolls from the earth with no more than a child's circle and determination, and that alone was frightening enough to set his teeth on edge.

He pulled into one of the rare spaces in front of the train station and turned off the engine. Without his permission, his eyes looked over to the passenger seat, where the telegram lay, innocent-looking for all the headache it was causing him.

_On my way back STOP. Surgery went well STOP. Will be back at 9:30 tomorrow morning, unless the train is late STOP._

No signature, but one wasn't needed. Roy would have recognised the message, and had acted accordingly – here to pick Ed up, parking at 9:25 precisely.

He almost wished he wasn't here.

His traitorous hand picked up the message and slipped it into his pocket. Choosing not to dwell on more than he already had, he let himself out of the car and walked onto the platform, closing his face in such a way that he didn't appear interesting but wasn't closed off enough to draw attention.

And he waited.

On time, the train pulled in with a hiss and crackle of electricity; a recent invention, the magnetised rails provided a smoother ride – and a faster one. Roy admitted privately that he was resenting that at the moment. The doors opened, and people poured out, sweeping past to loved ones or rushing off to a business meeting.

Within ten minutes, the platform was almost deserted – and there was no sign of Ed.

A tight feeling of apprehension fizzled through Roy, and he resisted the urge to glance about in confusion. Ed had said that he would be here, hadn't he? And this was the train from Risembool, so there was no chance he had missed him. He found himself giving quick, darting glances for the distinctive blond hair, but saw no one. There were two other occupants of the platform – the woman who was running the ticket stand, and a man in a brown coat.

The other man looked at him, and Roy almost leapt out of his skin when electric gold eyes caught his from beneath the hood; of course. Ed wouldn't have forgotten to put up his hood, even if Roy had.

Ed walked over, the hood again shading the upper half of his face, but that didn't hide the bright smile on his mouth. Roy swallowed quickly to hide the strange bout of nervousness building in his throat, and walked forward as well.

'Ready?' he asked, once Ed was close enough that the ticket-taker would hear nothing.

Ed lifted his head and gave him a strange look, but followed him out to the car.

The street was all but abandoned, as well, and that left Roy paranoid until he remembered that the next train wasn't for another half hour, so no one had a reason to hang around.

'What's got you on edge?' Ed asked from beside him, his own voice guarded. Roy looked at him, and noted the careful, sweeping flick of his eyes. 'Is something wrong?'

'On the way in,' Roy said, and opened the door for Ed. That earned him another strange look, but Ed slid in, and Roy shut the door before going to his own side.

A few moments later, they were on the road, and silence reigned until Ed murmured, 'Thank you.'

Roy looked at him, startled, as they came to a stop sign and yielded to the other drivers. 'For what?' he asked.

'The package,' Ed said, and looked to Roy, smiling again. 'From Sophie, my ass. You had a part in it, too. Thank you for that.'

Roy was unsettled by the image of those eyes _smiling_ at him in honest gratitude, but the unsettling quality was overrun by a glowing warmth in the base of his stomach.

'The stop sign,' Ed said helpfully, and Roy had to rein in a deep set flush when he realised he'd been staring openly at Ed for so long that the traffic had ceased. He drove forward, keeping his eyes firmly on the road. Beside him, he could hear Ed laughing softly, and that almost made him lose control of the blush – but, no. No, Ed couldn't know what Sophie knew (how she knew, only God knew, but that was alright, he supposed). He would have killed him by now out of embarrassment; even _if_ Ed had changed in fourteen years, there were certain permanences about everyone. And even if they were what could be called friends now, they weren't anywhere near comfortable with each other to even suggest something like that.

A fragment of Elena's voice whispered through his head, but it escaped before he could catch it and identify it.

He turned down a street, and Ed tensed beside him. 'I thought we would be headed to Central Command,' he said.

'I have something I need to show you,' Roy said, and Ed turned to him outright, confusion and curiosity painting their hues equally in the gleam of his eyes.

'What do you mean?' Ed asked, then his brow narrowed in a dark frown. 'Is this about what's got you edgy?'

'Yes and no,' Roy said truthfully. _The other part is my reaction to you and your presence and your eyes and your soul –_ 'It's about part of it, anyway. Something happened yesterday, that I can't explain. And you have something to do with it.'

There was a quality in Ed's eyes that went dark, and the corners of his mouth seemed to consider the benefits of turning down before deciding to stay where they were. 'Does it have to do with your wife?' he asked quietly, and Roy stiffened.

'No,' Roy said, and Ed sat back as if struck by the strength of the forced tone of cordiality in his voice. He had no idea why Ed's mind had leapt there first, but he would have to question it another time. 'It has to do with Sophie.'

The anxious look disappeared from Ed's face, replaced with a fierceness that almost assuaged Roy's fears. Almost.

'Did something happen to her?' Ed demanded instantly, his teeth bared ferociously, and he turned back in his seat to glare at the road as if it was the perpetrator. 'Is she okay?'

Roy let his grip tighten as they came within sight of his house, thinking of the eerie doll sitting on his counter. 'She's perfectly alright,' he said, and pulled into the driveway. 'It's about something she did.'

'What?' Ed looked back at him, and now he looked plainly bewildered. His face was expressive in a way that Roy had never seen on another human being, and it was dizzying to watch.

'Come see,' Roy said, and opened his door.

* * *

Ed followed Roy out of the car, trying to keep his emotions under his control. The anxiety he had felt upon exiting the train and not seeing Roy that had been startling powerful, and was only matched by the welling of relief when he had seen Roy. Well, seen Roy's eyes; they had drawn his own like a magnet, dark and bottomless, and if he hadn't forced himself to move his stomach might have dropped to the platform floor and he would have never seen it again.

This was stupid and he knew it, but it didn't change the way he felt.

But then...

Something was wrong, he knew it was. In the way that Roy stood, in the way that his eyes skimmed over Ed's face (why was there distrust in the set of his features?), and it had made Ed feel stiffer and less... welcome than he had when he had stepped off the train.

And now, Sophie had done something that had obviously upset Roy deeply, and set Ed's teeth on edge. She wasn't harmed, at least; thank the Gate for small mercies.

They passed through the door into the quiet coolness of Roy's home, and something inside Ed recoiled from the taste in the air – tangy and sweet with something like bile, but not something that was present. It was the flavour of alchemy, unrestricted; the flavour went metallic in his mouth as they approached the kitchen, and Ed caught Roy's sleeve in his hand, jerking the man to a stop.

'What the fuck is in there?' Ed demanded, before Roy could ask the question in his eyes.

Roy's mouth hardened subtly, but Ed didn't miss it. 'Why?' He asked, and his voice was too cold for Ed's liking.

'There's – it –' Ed flailed about mentally, searching for the words, but could find none, pinned as he was beneath Roy's suddenly icy stare. 'It tastes _wrong_ ,' he tried, and something flickered behind Roy's eyes, a signal that Ed was on the right track. 'In the air – it tastes like metal and – Gate knows what else, Roy, but it's wrong.'

Roy nodded once. 'So you understand my concern,' he said shortly, then opened the door. The metal taste grew stronger, and it threatened to gag Ed in the unfurling as he followed Roy through the doorway.

To his surprise, Sophie's doll sat on the counter – the one he had made himself. He looked to Roy, bemused in a way that made him wish he _had_ left his stomach on the platform floor, because then it wouldn't be twisting so horribly in his stomach. 'What's wrong with it?' he asked, bypassing the obvious question _why is it here_?

'There's an array on the back,' Roy said thickly, sounding like he was fighting back anger. 'Sophie found it yesterday and used it to transmute more dolls.'

'Sophie – _transmuted_?' Ed asked, shocked. 'But how? She's fucking _six_ , Roy.'

'She drew it in the dirt and activated the array, many times, to create a crowd of dolls, Ed,' Roy said darkly, and took a step away from Ed as if being near him would make him crack. 'I want to know why it was there.'

It clicked in Ed's mind. 'You think I put it there?' Ed asked, and a skirting edge of horror burrowed into his gut. 'Roy – I'd _never_ put something like that near her, or any kid. A single mistake would have made it blow up – the array I used was too complicated for her to copy onto dirt. She could have lost her fingers, for fuck's sake!' he said, and Roy flinched, the same horror in Ed's abdomen flooding his eyes. 'I would've –'

'Ed, the array wasn't that complex,' Roy cut in, looking angry for the first time since that Friday morning, three days ago, when he had questioned Ed's identity. 'A three year old could have copied it.'

'Let me see it,' Ed demanded instantly, his own frustration dimming his world to the slits between his lids. 'Now, damn it. I didn't do this, Roy, I promise you.'

Roy didn't respond, merely picked up the doll and held it out. 'I don't believe you,' he said, and Ed's stomach decided right now was the perfect time to splatter down to the floor.

Ed took the doll in his flesh hand, and almost dropped it in nausea; the feel of the doll was sickening, the taste in the air a cross between copper and rotting apples, and it took every ounce of his will to hold onto the muslin long enough to gasp out, 'Where is the fuckin' array?'

Roy's anger was replaced by a deep concern, and he snatched the doll away. Ed stumbled backward and bumped into the table, his hands clutching at the edge as he struggled to breathe normally. Roy set the doll aside and before Ed could take more than three breaths was beside him, tilting his chin up to search his eyes worriedly and check for fever. 'Ed, what was that?' he demanded, and his voice had lost the cold in favour of a too-hot concern. 'You look ready to be sick all over my floor.'

'There's something _wrong_ with that doll, Roy, I _told_ you that,' Ed snapped when he could open his mouth and not automatically want to vomit. The taste was still there, and he had to take deep breaths through his nose before he could speak again. He shook his head out of Roy's grip and glared death at the doll, which did not obligingly catch flame. 'Just – just show me the array, would you?'

Roy nodded and stepped away, picking the doll up and lifting the dress to show the array inked on the muslin. Ed's skin crawled, and he croaked, 'Set it down, please. Array still showing.'

Roy obliged, and Ed wobbled over, leaning over it to gain a better look. The red lines were purposely uneven, and a sigil in the upper right corner made him suck in a breath before he remembered that he did _not_ want to taste the copper-rotten-apple flavour again.

He staggered away, Roy catching his new arm in time to prevent him from bashing into the opposite counter, and Ed's flesh hand wrapped itself in Roy's jacket to steady himself. When he could breathe again, he looked up, to see Roy staring at him, a look he wasn't used to haunting the eyes he wanted to be familiar with. Fear; and his next statement wouldn't help it any.

He took another deep breath, this one not flavoured with the taste of alchemy but scented with whatever aftershave Roy used and the ozone scent of the man himself, and said, 'That's not human alchemy.'

* * *

 


	15. Chapter 15

* * *

**Sutra Fifteen: Tsumi**

* * *

Roy stared down at Ed, who was clinging weakly to his jacket in a way he would never have done fourteen years ago (if ever he had deigned to touch Roy), and felt whatever fear he had, triple.

'What?' he asked, and Ed's eyes darkened in mirrored horror.

'That's not human alchemy,' Ed repeated, and looked like he hated himself for having to say it. 'That's why it tastes the way it does – it's not human. I'm not sure what it is, but – it's –' he looked away, then back, and there was a fierceness there again, like when he had thought something had happened to Sophie. 'It's bad news, Roy,' he said, and stepped away from him.

He released Ed's arm, and suddenly felt awkward, the remnants of his anger still floating about them. What was he supposed to say? Sorry? He'd had every reason to believe Ed was the culprit, but now the evidence stood in the other direction – the array looked like nothing Ed had ever used before. It lacked the elegance that was the colour of Ed's alchemy as Roy had known it. But still...

'How do you know it's not human?' Roy said, and Ed walked slowly over to the doll. The same burn of nausea on his face grew in strength, until Roy could look no more for fear of feeling sick himself. Ed took great care not to touch the doll again, though, and said quietly, 'Here. Look at this sigil, Roy.'

Roy stepped over, arm extended slightly behind Ed in case he stumbled again, and eyed the unfamiliar curlicue. 'What is it?'

'I wasn't certain, for a moment,' Ed admitted, stepping away from the doll and almost into Roy's arm. 'But I am now. That's an evolutionary sigil – each time this array is used, it will create a slightly different copy of itself, changing the array slowly but surely.' He looked up at Roy, and away again; Roy noted that whatever direction Ed looked in, it wasn't near the doll. 'I've never seen it used here, though. It was used –'

His mouth clamped shut, and he shook his head. 'Trust me,' he said in response to Roy's piercing look, 'Even if you have no reason to. That array was not created by human hands. Sophie was using something even I only have a vague understanding of.' Ed shook his head. 'I doubt she even knew that it was unusual. She was just curious, Roy,' and Ed's look was semi-pleading when it was turned up to him, gold eyes sparking. 'She's just a child. She has no concept of what that was, or the danger of using it, or –'

'I understand, Ed,' Roy said, and Ed nodded slowly.

'I – I can't be near it much longer without being sick,' Ed said abruptly, seeming to notice that he was partially caged in by Roy's arm and the counter. He stepped quickly to the side, a slow flush starting to creep up the side of his neck. 'Keep it so I can study it, but I need to get away from it or I'll –'

He fled the room, and Roy watched him go. He turned back to the doll and stuffed it in one of the drawers with terror disguised as disgust, and followed him.

Ed was leaning on the opposite wall, trying to catch his breath with his eyes closed; his skin was pale and looked to be clammy; his new hand was pressed against his forehead, as if seeking the coolness of the metal to eradicate the illness of whatever he could sense in the house.

'Take it with you,' he said, and looked up at Roy. 'I have to stay here for Sophie, but I can't if it's still in the house. We'll be here when you come home.'

Roy was taken aback; in the midst of all this, when even Roy had forgotten, Ed was determined to keep his promise. Roy nodded and went back into the kitchen, taking the doll and stuffing it into his pocket; he then left the house, nodding to Ed (who still looked ill). He threw it in the back, and started the car; the entire way to the office, he felt as though the doll's empty eyes were trained on the back of his seat, waiting hungrily for another chance to have its frightening alchemy practised once again.

* * *

Ed stumbled into the living room, his head swimming and his vision swirling in dizzying patterns of nausea that just wouldn't steady, even when he collapsed onto the couch.

Never had he faced something like _this_ – chimaeras, yes, mad alchemists, yes, the Gate, oh hell yes – but this was terrible. Maybe the memories of the rest had been diluted over time, but this was fresh and disturbingly visceral, the red pulse at the edge of his vision and the taste of rot in his mouth.

It wasn't human, but what it could be Ed had no idea. All he knew, really, was that he wanted it away from himself, away from Roy, and perhaps most importantly right the hell away from _Sophie_. Whatever this was, it had chosen to manifest itself on a child's doll; it was _twisted_ , that's what it was, and it was twisting Ed's stomach in dry heaves and his mind in directions it hadn't gone in years.

He stared up at the ceiling, and slowly the sensation of sickness left him (probably as Roy drove away, he thought hazily). As soon as he could sit up and not want to throw up, he reached for a pad of paper left on the coffee table and a pen beside it. The pad look as if the top sheet had been torn off, and indecipherable words had left their imprints on the paper beneath; he looked at them curiously, but preferred to focus on what he was doing.

He pulled, with some difficulty, from the the back of his mind the array he had used to create Sophie's doll. The next few minutes were spent sketching it out, taking care to leave miniscule openings in the lines so that it couldn't hold a charge, so that he could see where the other array had come from.

It's schematic was buried in his own array – a hint of a line there, a small circle there, the burning sensation behind his eyelids when he could see it forming under his pen. But it wasn't _there_ , not fully, and Ed couldn't see how it could change into that _thing_ painted on the back of Sophie's doll.

He looked at it from all angles, but there was no sigil that could have facilitated the change, no line, no mark. The metamorphosis just _wasn't_ there.

'What the fuck happened?' he asked, then his eyebrows shot up.

 _Maybe it's not the array_.

He dug the rose from his coat pocket, and a thrum of sadness rang through him at its sadly squashed state; he shoved that aside (no point in mourning a flower, he thought as sensibly as his affected mind could manage) and set it on the table.

He studied it critically, from one angle to another, until he was certain it would haunt his dreams – but nothing. It was the only other thing he had alchemised that day, and (other than being squashed in his pocket) it had not changed one iota. So what had happened?

That question so occupied his mind that he almost didn't hear the rumble of a large car outside, or the opening of the door.

He set the rose aside and stood, stretching before stepping into the hallway silently.

Sophie stood at the other end, frowning in concentration as she removed her shoes and placed them carefully on the mat. Her hair was pulled back in a messy wrap she had clearly done herself, as strips of black still poured forward like ink, but when she stood, Ed was startled with how much less hazel her eyes looked in the gloom, and how much more gold.

And then she caught sight of him, and her eyes all but blazed.

'Papi!' she squealed, dropping her bag and her hat, and dashing forward; Ed reached out and caught her before she had the chance to knock the wind out of him, and hugged her.

Of course, she choked him thoroughly about the neck with the killer hug Ed was already familiar with, but he'd expected that and taken a deep breath before picking her up.

'Papa wouldn't say when you were coming back, Papi, and I was sort of upset with him, but he just kept saying I don't know and rolling his eyes and it drove me up the wall, especially when he said I couldn't tell Kristy that you were here yet, something about waiting for a moment, but I _missed_ you and I didn't tell but I sat there all day making a face and waiting and I don't know if I could have done it another day, so I'm so happy you're here!'

That wasn't all said with one breath, but it might as well have been, Ed thought amusedly, _as she didn't pause between words anyway_. He set her down, and she gripped his wrist excitedly, eyes shining like yellow stars. 'I missed you too, Sophie,' he said, and her smile got even wider. He brushed one of the errant strands out of her face, and her eyes locked on his hand.

'Oh!' she said, and caught it with both of her hands, dropping his other wrist to do so. 'It's so much shinier than your last one!' she said, moving the fingers experimentally. 'It's pretty!'

'You can thank Winry for that,' Ed said with a smile.

'Aunt Winry did your automail?' Sophie said, looking perplexed; then she nodded. 'Papa didn't tell me where you went, you see, so I thought maybe you'd gone to Rush Valley. But you're Uncle Al's brother, of course you would have gone there.'

She continued her little ramble as Ed led her into the kitchen; the sense of illness had disappeared from the room, but his eyes still flicked to the spot where the doll had sat. 'Would you like something to eat, Sophie?' he asked, and a nod was added to her smile. He sat her down before starting to dig through the kitchen, trying to find what was there.

Evidently, it had been a while since Roy (or Elena, Ed thought with a pang) had gone grocery shopping, because there wasn't much. He began to heat up a can of soup and look around for a bread-cupboard, when Sophie clapped happily, startling him.

'How did you know I liked chicken corn chowder?' she asked, standing and skipping over. 'Papa hates it, but Mama and I loved it.' She looked hard at Ed, as if trying to figure a difficult equation, and then asked as if it was the most serious thing in the world, 'Do _you_ like chicken corn chowder?'

'No, I don't,' he said, stifling a laugh because the look on her face said that it would be taken badly. 'Too much milk.'

Sophie giggled at his tone and he stuck his tongue out at her, which made her giggle louder. A few more minutes, and the soup was bubbling; he poured some into a bowl and sat Sophie down with it and a ham sandwich he had fixed (the bread, interestingly enough, having been kept in the cupboard. With the cans of vegetables. Elena always _had_ been badly organised.)

It felt weird to think of the Elena he had known as the same person as Roy's wife; he knew that reflections had the same basic traits as the originals, but that they were very different due to personal experiences. He thought of the reflection of himself and snorted; the little priss had been raised without a mother and seemed to think that dating every woman he met (and a few number of the men) would make up for it. The only reason Ed had been spared was because the other Ed had thought it creepy to look into eyes so like his own.

Not all reflections were bad, he reasoned as he took a sip of water from a glass. Greed and Envy had certainly made up for the other Ed and –

Thankfully, Sophie cut off that line of thought before Ed had to, asking in a bright, cheerful voice, 'Did you see Anda and Liam?'

'I did,' Ed smiled.

'Did Anda swear at you?' Sophie asked, again very serious. 'Aunt Winry blames you for her mouth, but I never saw how – she never met you!' She looked as if she felt Winry had done Ed a great wrong, but Ed smiled and she relaxed. 'Besides, Anda says she talks like that because that's how Aunt Winry talks when she works on automail, and that always makes Uncle Al smile.'

'And does he smile when he sees that Anda's swearing?' Ed asked.

'Well, no, but –' then a thought seemed to light Sophie from the inside out. 'That reminds me! I want to show you what I did yesterday!'

Ed flinched. 'Sophie,' he said slowly, 'I don't think that's a good idea.'

'Why?' She said, her face scrunched up in a frown. 'Nobody's happy with me! I showed Papa, but he just made me crumble up the dollies I made, and now you don't want to see! Why?'

'Sophie,' Ed started, leaving his chair to kneel besides hers, 'It's not a good idea because what you did was not – it wasn't normal, Soph.' He looked at her, and she looked struck. 'That wasn't normal alchemy. It's not safe – I saw it today and I got sick.'

'It made you sick?' Sophie said, voice quiet with fear. Her eyes were rounder than her father's, and it showed in how wide they went. 'But why?'

'I don't know why, yet,' he admitted. 'But it's not good, Sophie – it's dangerous. And if you had done one thing wrong with the array, I don't know what would have happened to you.' Her eyes were even rounder now, and Ed felt bad for scaring her. 'I'm proud that you could do it – I'm very proud – but you can't do it again.'

'But you used that arrie-thing to make Molly!' she pointed out. 'Why is it safe for you?'

'That wasn't the array I used,' Ed said. 'I don't know where it came from, or if someone put it there. I don't even know why someone would put it on a doll. But I promise you it wasn't mine. I'd never put something that could hurt you on a present.'

Sophie nodded, worrying her lip between her teeth and twisting her skirt in her hands, before looking up. 'Is that why Papa made me leave Molly at home?'

Ed nodded. 'When I find out what happened and how to make sure it doesn't happen again, I'll make you a new doll, okay?'

She nodded with a small smile, but there was little-to-no excitement in her eyes.

* * *

Roy muddled through his paperwork, trying to focus enough to finish before the day was over but failing miserably. Outside his door, the team made their typical grumbles about Monday and work and, when Hawkeye left to make coffee, how the PA kept their noses to the grindstone. On another day, Roy would have been amused enough to try listening in, but today...

Today his mind was on the doll still sitting in the backseat of his car, staring ominously forward, and how it had changed from the innocent doll that had been given to Sophie as a gift.

Well, and if he was honest, Ed. Ed seemed to occupy a corner in his thoughts that was getting larger and larger with each passing day, and Roy knew what _that_ meant. It was obscene and grotesque, it was unsettling and discomfiting, and he hated that he liked the little thrill that swooped through his stomach at the thought of Ed. But he was there, all the same.

He had said something today that Roy wanted to write off but couldn't; Ed was different than he remembered, but he still appeared to have the same core beliefs. Or, at least, Roy had thought so until Ed had looked at him and said, 'We'll be here when you come home.'

 _Why is that distracting me so much_? Roy asked plaintively of the paperwork before him, which predictably didn't have the answer and couldn't have given it even if it did.

And then there was Ed's strange pronouncement on the in-humanity of the alchemy...

Roy set aside his pen and swept the paper to the side, before pressing his forehead against the cool wood of his desk. Too much was happening too fast, and it would drag him under if he didn't stand strong against the tide of information; he knew that, but a large part of him wanted to fold and let the tide carry him out to sea, where at least he had peace.

The wood wouldn't warm beneath his skin, no matter how long he kept them in contact; that idle thought kept him occupied until he heard the bells of the churches across the city toll four o'clock. That alone was strange; normally the bustle of the city was enough to cover them. But the entire city was strangely quiet, and when he lifted his head and rubbed at the red mark he was certain decorated his forehead, he realised the air had grown lank and tense with humidity and something sharper – a scent tainted with the familiar breath of ozone.

'A storm,' he said aloud, and stood to look out the open window. Just peeking over the far horizon were the purple-black clouds of a massive summer storm, and while he watched, it inched, iota by iota, closer to Central. It was too far away to be much concern, and the wind was all but dead in the city; but still, it was coming. Two days away, at the most. If the wind picked up it would strike by mid-afternoon tomorrow.

The faint tingle of electricity, a promise of bright flashes and beautiful destruction, danced along his skin. He idly wondered if Ed liked storms. Elena had hated them and the noise they brought, choosing to hide in the house with a book while Roy and Sophie played in the rain until it was too dangerous to stay outside.

Ed had his automail to worry about, but would he care? Would he run out into the rain with Sophie and Roy, or would he stand under the protective cover of the porch, unwilling to risk it? If the latter, would he watch with relief – or envy?

Roy sat down again, and as if the humid air was a catalyst for Roy's productivity, he flew through the paperwork, and was finished by five o'clock. He left, after flashing a smile-tinged-smirk at Hawkeye, who watched him leave with hooded eyes. There was a concerned turn to her lips, but she let him pass, and he left the building, pausing only to salute a General and trade greetings.

It was only when he reached the car that he remembered the doll, and he slid into his seat, grimacing. It hadn't moved, which may have been too much for Roy to take had it chosen to do so, but its eyes were darker. Or so he thought. He didn't look at it long enough to determine the truth of that statement for sure.

He started the car and drove with the windows down, letting the faint promise of the storm flood through and wash away the taint of the doll's alchemy from his mind. He would leave it in the car, he decided, remembering Ed's look when he had seen the doll last.

Then, as if awakening from a daze, he remembered the plan to reintroduce Ed to society, and realised that he'd have to put the doll out in the backyard, as far from the house as possible. They had several errands to run tonight, and they would need the car.

He smiled. Ed was going to be pissed when he heard this plan, but it would be worth it. _Besides_ , he thought as he turned onto his street and saw at an angle that Ed and Sophie were in the backyard, _no matter what he thinks, I'm still the manipulative bastard he knew._

And he turned into his driveway, caught his daughter up in his arms, and wondered if he'd been forgiven for that.

But not forgotten, if the smile that was less in Ed's mouth and more in his eyes as he caught up with Sophie, was anything to go by.

Never forgotten.

* * *

 


	16. Chapter 16

* * *

**Sutra Sixteen: Uso**

* * *

For a few minutes, no one noticed the figure strolling up the main street of Central towards Central Command. Clearly wasn't a soldier; whoever it was, they moved too gracefully for that. Several women noted that the person had lovely, long blond hair, and sighed jealously; but then the gold eyes caught them, and they gasped. As if anyone could forget those eyes.

The murmurs started when the brown coat opened and the flash of silver caught the sun; they grew in volume until no one bothered lowering their voices anymore. The sound spread like a wave, lowering to silence when the man passed, only to grow louder than before in his wake. And it spread quickly all over the city, as quickly as the lightning that one could spy if the peered very closely at the far horizon, flickering like snake tongues in the wind.

_I saw him!_

_But it's been too long..._

_How can this be?_

_It's the –_

_Fullmetal Alchemist!_

The whispers burned their way through everyone who heard them, until a crowd started to subtly follow him; Ed tried to maintain steady breaths, but he'd never particularly liked being the subject of such open scrutiny.

 _Fuck Roy and his plans_ , he thought sourly, but tried to keep a neutral face. It wouldn't do to look pissed already.

Well, actually, most people would remember him as a short-tempered person, anyway, so he supposed he was allowed to let his face darken into a scowl.

Behind him, the voices were starting to sound like a mob as he climbed the steps of Central Command. Soldiers passing stared at him, a creature of legend given breath and light and allowed to walk beneath the sun; civilians stayed outside the boundary of Central Command, but from the sound, the restraint wouldn't last long. He strolled through the double doors, and the morning congregation fell silent, staring openmouthed. He looked around, managing (much to his satisfaction) to look unimpressed.

'Can anyone point me to Mustang's office, or is the old bastard dead yet?' he asked into the silence.

'Fullmetal...?' Roy asked from behind him, and as Ed turned, he had to hand it to the man. The theatre was clearly suffering for having been deprived of one Roy Mustang. 'You're...'

'Alive? Yeah, that was obvious,' Ed snorted. 'Hell of a trick staying that way, but I've always been good at that.'

Roy managed to both look completely shaken and hide a gleam of pleasure in his eyes so that only Ed could see. _Talented fucker_. 'I...'

'Too many shocks in too few days,' Ed heard one soldier behind them whisper to another. 'He just lost his wife, too...'

'Come with me, Fullmetal,' Roy managed, still holding the look of being shaken and blending it with a desperate grab at authority. 'You have a report I've been waiting fourteen years for.'

The buzz behind them grew as Ed grinned laconically, gesturing to Roy that he could lead the way. He followed the man, trying to gauge the reactions of the people around them while maintaining his nonplussed expression. He knew he wasn't doing well, so he dropped the survey and focussed on not letting the cat out of the bag.

Besides, this was almost fun.

He watched Roy's stride in front of him, and resisted the temptation to follow the lines of his pants to their inevitable conclusion for his image's sake.

This was _definitely_ fun.

* * *

Roy wanted to laugh. Ed's opening line had been unrehearsed and impromptu, but it had been the perfect blend of Old Ed and New. Didn't help that when he'd turned around the morning sun had caught him, and only half of the shakiness in Roy's voice had been an act. The brat had _planned_ that, Roy just knew it, the way he had been caught in the light and the way his eyes would shine, shards of stars trapped in molten gold –

But he had remembered his own part, and now they were on the silent stairway, none of the soldiers below stupid enough to try following. Ed's legend had only grown over his absence, and Roy suspected the soldiers were terrified Ed would turn them to alchemical soup if they pissed him off.

Ed himself looked secretly pleased, though he was trying to hide it; not remarkably well, Roy noted, but well enough that a passing soldier would think it mere self-satisfaction.

Ed caught him looking, and raised an eyebrow in a perfect imitation of his younger self. Roy had to fight for the look of awed shock, but not as hard as he would have liked to. It took a moment to remind himself of where they were and the expressions he most certainly could _not_ have in Ed's presence, but once the reminder was in place he didn't think he'd slip. He wasn't allowed to; Elena had trained him too hard for that.

Again, that fragment of something in Elena's voice slid through his mind, pearly as oil and just as slick; he tried to catch it, but could not. He tried to shake it off as unimportant, but in much the same way as it fled from him, it refused to leave well enough alone.

He turned into the office, and, according to plan, he pushed Ed in front of him and swept him through the mock-shocked team, saying swiftly, 'All will be explained later, when I understand. Hawkeye, there are to be no visitors, no calls, nothing.'

'U-understood, sir,' she said, sounding shaken for the benefit of anyone listening, but she gave Ed a small smile and mouthed _good to have you back, sir_. Ed managed a little wave and a cocky grin before Roy shoved him into the office and locked the door.

Ed went and sat in one of the black leather chairs in front of Roy's desk, grinning. 'Think they bought it?' he said in an undertone; Roy had warned him last night of the possibility of new listening devices in his office, and Ed had merely nodded before saying the same thing had been common on Earth.

'If they didn't, it's neither your fault, nor mine,' Roy replied with a smile of his own. He took his own seat and steepled his fingers, watching Ed over them; Ed raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Roy sighed, and said quietly, 'Do you remember your story? Tell it to me aloud, to throw off the listening devices.'

Ed's smile broadened, and a gleam entered his eyes; Roy thought it was familiar, and had to work to recall the look Ed had worn while telling Sophie the story Friday night. He compared them, and realised that this one was more intense; as well it should be, Roy reflected as Ed sat back in the seat and made himself comfortable. He'd merely been telling a story on Friday; now he was lying for his life.

'It was a stupid mistake on my part,' Ed began, sounding genuinely bitter, and Roy nodded along. 'That last mission you gave me – the one I wasn't supposed to talk about even to Al? It went shitty right after we staged my death. I was on the train to Areugo, and had just crossed the border when they closed it. I had a hell of a time getting off that train.' The irritation in his voice was pitched to sound as if he thought Roy personally responsible, but the mad twinkle in his eyes took away the sting. 'After that, I went into hiding.'

'For fourteen years?' Roy asked, the sceptical tone in his voice a perfect mixture of disdain and bewilderment. 'Surely _you_ would have found a way out.'

* * *

Ed looked at him admiringly, the same way he had when he had seen Roy framed by sunlight. He really _was_ an excellent actor, Ed had to admit, but Ed was the storyteller of the two and knew how to use his voice.

'Careful, bastard,' he said lazily, 'Someone might think you were giving me a compliment.' The barb was for show, no more, but Roy blinked in surprise. Ed ignored it, using the pause to search his memory. Roy had debriefed him entirely on the Areugian scenario the night before, and it had been such a torrential downpour of information that it took a moment for Ed to fish the right piece from the tide. 'And I did find a way out, didn't I? It just took forever.'

Ed glanced back up. 'In the beginning, they were taking a lot of political prisoners. And despite what you may have thought at the time, even _I_ knew that being caught was a dumb idea. Can you imagine the uproar? Welcome to hell, bring your own brimstone.' Ed shrugged. 'So I went into hiding. Dyed my hair, changed my clothes, picked up an Areugian accent.'

To Ed's relief, Areugian accents sounded suspiciously Italian, so if asked for veracity he could fake his way through it. Ed tossed his head back against the soft leather, the lessened weight of his hair strange; they had cut it the night before to something like its usual length, and it was strange to be missing the heavy fall of hair he'd been so used to for so many years.

'And of your original mission?'

...And _here_ was where it got tricky. The fake mission Roy had cooked up required Ed to have investigated the non-alchemical technologies being developed in Areugo – but Ed hadn't actually _been_ there, so he had no idea about the actual state of things. And with Areugo's borders closed for so long, Roy had as little idea about it as Ed.

'It was...' Ed sighed. 'Top secret. As much as I'd like to say I could have infiltrated the higher ups, in the beginning I looked and sounded too Amestrian to actually pull it off. By the time I got hold of documentation, all the intel I'd been sent with was obsolete. Power had changed hands, and I had no idea who was safe to talk to and who would throw me in a cell. So I laid low in the countryside, where people had even less idea of who I could be, and avoided the cities –'

A loud, imperial-sounding knock on the door made Ed leap near out of his skin, and Roy swore under his breath. 'I told Hawkeye no visitors,' he said quietly, and went to open the door.

In swept a man Ed would _not_ want to get in a tangle with. He was built along the lines of a well-muscled house, with a square jaw and hands that looked to be the size of dinner plates. Roy snapped to attention and saluted.

'Fuhrer Cenno,' Roy said, his voice perfectly polite and respectful. The Fuhrer waved away the salute with a rapid one of his own, and closed the door behind himself. Ed tensed in his seat, but if the current Fuhrer took any notice, he made no sign of it.

'Lieutenant-General Mustang,' He said, voice warm (and unnaturally loud), then turned to Ed. 'Major Elric.'

Ed stood and obligingly saluted him. Cenno returned it, but behind him, Roy looked heavily amused; no doubt at Ed's salute. Ed somehow doubted it was up to par, but the Fuhrer seemed not to notice.

'When I heard the Fullmetal Alchemist had returned to Amestris, alive and well, I had to see for myself,' Cenno boomed. 'I apologise for interrupting the debriefing, Lieutenant-General. Your PA mentioned that you had asked for no visitors.'

'That is quite all right, Fuhrer,' Roy said smoothly. 'Not at all an issue – we can continue the debriefing at a later time.' He smiled. 'Can I invite you to take a seat?'

'But of course,' Cenno nodded, and took the other leather chair. He waved them to sit, and Ed did so with a sense of uneasiness. There was something about Cenno that he didn't like, something about the way the skin crinkled around his too hard eyes, like dark bruised-purple cherry pits. He could not place it, however, and let it be. 'After all, I am intensely curious to hear the circumstances that led to your return.'

Ed nodded; he had expected that. He repeated what he had been saying prior to Cenno's arrival, and concluded with the tale of how he'd escaped. It was easy to lie when you weren't looking someone in the eye, but lying was a far cry from storytelling, and Ed had to fight not to embellish – indeed, to edit, so that certain details would be hazy in Cenno's mind and the others much sharper.

'Indeed,' Cenno said, sitting back into the chair. 'Hidden in a shipment to Creata and snuck across the Creatian border, eh? Clever.' He nodded and looked pleased, as if the plan had been his own, and stood. 'My curiosity is alleviated for the moment, but I cannot say the same for my generals. I will, of course, be passing this account onto them.'

Roy nodded placidly. 'Is there anything Fullmetal may have left out, sir?'

'No – well, there is one thing.' Cenno looked to Roy, and his gaze sharpened. 'Is there a reason that the details of this mission were not made known to me upon my inauguration twelve years ago?'

Roy smiled. 'I apologise, but Fullmetal's state of wellbeing was unknown. The original file was among those lost in the fire at former Fuhrer King Bradley's home, and until we knew whether Fullmetal was alive or dead, we could not risk telling anyone. Any disciplinary actions should be directed at myself for overcautiousness.'

Cenno looked at Roy a moment, then laughed loudly. 'I knew you were one for words, Mustang, but you outdo yourself more and more each time we meet. No disciplinary actions – you were doing what was best for the country and your men.' He turned to Ed. 'I've been calling you Major, but considering your actions, I'm reinstating your post-mortem promotion.'

'No need, sir,' Ed said, having expected this (even if the faintly surprised look on Roy's face said _he_ was not). 'I'm pleased with my station. Any promotions and I might have to spend my days in an office.'

'Which would indeed be a waste of your talents,' Cenno said regretfully, but nodded. 'Carry on, then.'

And with a flourish that didn't seem ridiculous despite his monstrous size, Cenno left.

Ed dropped his head into his hands and released a quiet sigh of relief. 'He bought it,' Ed said in an undertone that he knew Roy would hear, but couldn't be picked up by sound equipment. 'He really did.'

'He did,' Roy agreed, then spoke louder as he said, 'Well, Fullmetal, I believe that settles the current issues at hand. Have you a place to stay in Central?'

'Well, I can always go into the barracks again,' Ed shrugged.

'Perhaps not the best idea,' Roy said, voice meditative. 'With the current state of things, I'd be surprised if you got any rest.'

'I haven't had a chance to check my bank account,' Ed said. 'It went to Al, but from what I've heard, he's never touched it.'

'You've spoken to him?' Roy asked, but he was nodding along; this conversation was solely for the benefit of any illicit listeners, as Ed knew, so he spared Roy a bright smile.

'Like I'd come here first, bastard,' Ed fired back when Roy returned it. 'I guess I'll start looking around for an apartment. Know any good hotels around that I can stay in while I look?'

'I'll do you one better,' Roy said, and smiled again. 'You can stay with me.'

'What?' Ed sputtered around his grin. 'You're not serious?'

'Completely,' Roy said, abruptly serious. 'It's the least I can do for having gotten you into this.'

'But that's...' Ed shook his head. 'I heard that your – your wife just died. Al mentioned it.' He fell quiet a moment, and studied Roy's face. A strange palette of emotions coloured Roy's face: grief, unease, anger, relief, pain, weariness. 'And that you have a kid. I know you think I'm tactless, but I can't intrude on that.'

'Yes, you can,' Roy said decisively, as if Ed hadn't seen the emotions playing over his face. For all Ed knew, Roy didn't know he had. 'I insist. I have a spare bedroom. Besides, I have been intending to visit your brother as it is. It would be – it would be good for Sophie.'

'Your daughter?'

'Yes.'

'Okay,' Ed said, making sure to sound uncertain of himself.

'Here,' Roy said, and scribbled a few nonsense words on a scrap of paper. 'My address. Go there, and rest. You've come far in the past few days.'

Ed took the scrap of paper, and Roy followed him to the door. 'Havoc, take Ed to my house,' he said upon broaching the door. The named man looked up; they had been playing their parts to a science, huddled around Hawkeye's desk and muttering quietly, as if theorising where Ed had come from. Havoc snapped a hasty salute, and followed Ed out of the office.

'How'd it go, boss?' Havoc asked once they were out of earshot and in a deserted corridor. He was taking care to look in awe, and was currently lighting a cigarette with expertly-feigned shaky hands. Another one who should have considered the theatre.

'Oh, as well as could be expected,' Ed shrugged, and smiled as they came out into the sunlight. The quality of the light was extra strong, as if to try and head off the bank of tall, brilliantly blue-purple-grey clouds that were rolling in steadily; Ed looked at them consideringly. They would hit within the hour.

He got into the car, grateful for the shield from the steadily-fiercer wind, and frowned. Something was still bothering him. Something about this Fuhrer Cenno – the way his eyes were too hard for his face, small unpolished diamonds set in sandstone. But he couldn't place it, and let himself relax into the seat.

He still had a part to play, after all.

* * *

Roy watched Havoc and Ed disappear, and turned to Hawkeye. 'Is this room debugged?'

'Yes, unlike your office,' Hawkeye replied, and Roy shut the doors before taking Havoc's abandoned seat. The other members of the team scattered to their seats, visibly relaxed, and began to work; Roy knew his part required him skiving off work for the rest of the day, and even though Hawkeye directed him an irritated look, he ignored it.

'Here's the much condensed story. Memorise it,' Roy said abruptly, and though no one paused in what they were doing, the noise level dropped like a rock. He did not have to voice why; the team knew that they were lying for their own lives as well as Ed's.

'He was trapped behind Areugo's borders, and only recently escaped. You do not know why he was there, you believed him dead. Much like everyone else. Only I and the late Fuhrer Bradley knew that Ed was on a mission, and I was uncertain of his status, and so did not challenge the post-mortem promotion or classification as KIA.'

There were nods of assent from all, and Roy forced himself to look tense and shaken as the rest of the team tried to look productive (a problem they had on normal days, much less today.) There were only subtle tones of true anxiety in the team's actions: the faster than normal _click-click-click_ of heels as Hawkeye went through files as if she planned to retire at the end of the day; Falman's obsessive rearrangement of his desk; Fuery's strange stillness when he was not writing; Breda's reluctance to leave the office.

A phone rang in the quieter than normal room, and near everyone jumped. Roy almost clicked his fingers, and it was with an apprehensive glance that Hawkeye answered the line. Roy went taut when her face paled. 'For you, sir,' she said, and held out the phone.

The walk to her desk felt like the swim of a thousand miles, and as he got to his feet Fuery blurted, 'How did they get through? I've re-routed all calls, I made _sure_ –'

'It's Havoc.'

The entire room was silent but for the sound of the city outside.

Roy crossed the final distance and took the phone. 'Yes?' He said, fighting for a collected voice. He knew he had failed when Hawkeye gave him a look. 'Havoc.'

' _Er, yeah,_ ' Havoc said, sounding like he was talking around a hastily-lit cigarette. ' _You, uh, might want to come look at this, Chief._ ' In the background Roy could hear Ed's voice speaking rapidly.

And then the unmistakeable voice of Sophie answered, her voice coloured with equally unmistakeable fear.

Roy dropped the phone, and as he all but sprinted for the door, the sky above Central cracked and the rain began to pour through.

* * *

 


	17. Chapter 17

* * *

**Sutra Seventeen: Tsuta**

* * *

'Boss,' Havoc said, hanging up the car-phone with a look of nausea, 'was calling the Chief immediately the best plan? I mean,' he said, struggling to light his cigarette in the sudden rain, 'You know almost better than anyone the shocks he's been through in the last couple days.'

Ed nodded, but looked back at the house and scowled. 'It's his house, after all,' he said. That wasn't even half the reason why he had wanted Roy here as fast as humanly possible, but it sure as hell was going to be the only one he gave Havoc.

First and foremost of those unspoken reasons was the little girl huddling in the back seat of Havoc's car, swamped in Ed's deer-brown jacket and staring warily at her home. She had looked so frightened when Ed and Havoc had pulled up, and had all but burrowed into Ed's midriff when he opened the car door. She had been whimpering quietly in his lap as Havoc placed the call, and Ed suspected the rather abrupt end had been because Roy had heard Sophie in the background.

Having set Sophie aside into the backseat, he stood back into the rain – at least that was soothing, stealing away some of the heat the had left him feeling feverish throughout the day and had only given him a headache upon his arrival.

He gave the house another cautious look, laced with the first tinge of real fear he had felt since encountering the doll yesterday morning. Through the rain and the sopping-wet curtain of his bangs, the house (and its new... decorations) gained an air of umbra he was unfamiliar with, cold and clinging.

But perhaps the strangest change was the delicately curving nettle that swept over the house like a curtain, dyed grey by the rain; bits of red brick shone through, and dotted about like woebegotten windflowers were blooms of fiery red and incandescent orange. It didn't help that every neighbour was peering out of their windows, hoping for a glimpse of the long-revered and long-lost Fullmetal Alchemist.

'I _knew_ I shouldn't have left those _damn_ roses on the coffee table,' he huffed, the breath leaving him in a heated cloud of white.

The sound of a car engine, and he turned. Roy slid to a stop, dangerously close to Havoc's car, and flung himself out at the same moment Sophie did.

'Papa!' She shouted, and dived for him. He caught her gracefully (as gracefully as any desperate man could) and bundled her up close. Ed suddenly felt very aware of himself – an outsider, looking in. He turned back to the house, busying himself with anxieties – were the nettles poisonous? Were they inside, as well? Was it really his alchemy that was doing all this or was it –

'Thank you, Ed.'

Ed jumped clear out of his skin, and when he landed again Roy was looking at him with a faint smile – all they could manage, in front of so many eyes. 'I was deeply concerned when I heard,' he continued in a slightly more professional tone.

Ed opted for the 'smart-ass' route, and snorted. 'You all but flew over here, R – Mustang,' he said, hastily covering up Roy's name with a more appropriated epithet. 'Deeply concerned doesn't say shit, does it?'

'My daughter,' Roy said reproachfully. Sophie giggled as Ed flushed.

'Sorry,' Ed said in an undertone, mortified. 'I – I got carried away.'

'Can't say I blame you,' Roy said in the same undertone, then opened his mouth to say something else.

Somehow, Ed didn't think it was meant to be a strangled exclamation.

'Yeah, that's kind of why I called you,' Ed sighed, taking care to sluice the apprehension from his voice – no need to frighten Sophie more. 'Looks like you let the gardener go wild, Mustang.'

'I assure you, Fullmetal,' Roy said, sounding strained, 'This is not from any of _my_ decorating choices.'

'Papa?' Sophie asked quietly. 'Why are you and P – Ed talking so funny?'

'I'll explain later, sweetheart,' Roy said hastily when Havoc looked over, an odd look on his face. Ed suppressed a smile. 'In the meantime...' He looked hard at Ed. 'Report.'

...Fourteen years, it seemed, couldn't bleed the military from a man, Ed realised irritatedly as he unconsciously snapped to attention. 'We arrived a short while ago, right before the storm started, and met your daughter, who had just been dropped off. The house was already in this state.' Ed looked at it again, and took a deep breath; yes, there it was, the copper-fruit tang of the unfamiliar alchemy.

He resisted the urge to rub his forehead; he didn't know _why_ he could taste this alchemy, or sense it at all. All alchemists had _some_ attunement to the sensation of alchemy; it was what warned them when a hidden array was at work. But being able to taste it, and made sick by it –

'Ed!'

Ed's head snapped around, and he all but stumbled backwards when his nose smacked into Roy's. He skittered back, and had to fight against a startled noise when he bumped into Havoc.

'Boss!' Havoc said, surprised, and pushed Ed into an upright position. 'You went white!'

'I –'

'It's the alchemy again, isn't it,' Roy said quietly.

Ed shivered. There was a cold fierceness in Roy's voice – no, that wasn't it. There was a gathering storm of coldness around him, burning in his black eyes and whitening the knuckles of his fists. The eyes flicked to him, and Ed shivered again. 'You're alright?' he asked, and the coldness was banked – a blue-white flame.

'Just a little sick,' Ed admitted, forcing the words out between clenched teeth; he hated admitting weakness of any kind, and so was caught off-guard by the quick-silver flash of Roy's smile, sliding away from his mouth before it could find purchase.

'Good,' he said, turning back to the house. 'Then we know it's the same thing.'And Ed turned to look at the house as well, and had to resist a third shiver.

Because even though Roy wasn't furious with _him_ , he knew (from experience) that Roy Mustang's temper was not to be tried lightly.

* * *

Roy felt his anger seething in his veins, but it seemed... subdued. Why, he had no idea; greater men than he had crumbled under weights less than this. First the death of his wife ( _empty, remember_ ), then the return of an old... friend ( _empty, damn you, empty_ ), and now the slow crumbling of his every support and sense of a still-sane world ( _I am completely fucked, aren't I_?)

Sophie's hand clutched through his jacket and warmed him, slightly, and he took a deep breath. 'Let's see the damage,' he sighed, and Ed smiled.

That warmed him too, strangely enough – all flashing teeth and brightening eyes, but there were enough shadows there to tamp down the warmth.

How Ed did that, Roy was certain he'd never know, but it gave him enough strength to turn to the house and take the first purposeful step towards it. Ed took his other side, Havoc following behind, and he shoved his panicky thoughts to the side as Ed began to theorise aloud.

'It must have come from the roses I left on the coffee table,' Ed muttered, shaking his head as if to dodge the rain. 'The flavour in the air –' Ed took a deep breath, the way he had right before he had blanched, and shuddered. 'The same as the air in your house after Molly.'

'Are you alright?' Roy asked, and Ed shot him a sharp, dangerous look.

'We have bigger problems right now,' he said, sounding irritated that Roy was focussing on him rather than the issue at hand. 'Like trying to figure out why in the hell this is happening.'

'Could your travels through the Gate have affected your alchemy?'

Roy and Ed turned to look at Havoc, unconsciously matching expressions of disbelief on their faces. Havoc huffed. 'I've spent the majority of my service under you, sir,' he said to Roy. 'You pick things up or you get dropped.'

Ed nodded, his eyes narrowed at nothing in particular. 'It's possible,' he admitted after a moment. 'But I have no idea how or why it would do it.'

'It would help if we knew the mechanism you used to travel through the Gate,' Roy said quietly, and Ed stiffened.

Roy watched him closely as he turned to face him, watched the shutters in his eyes snap closed so that his eyes were no longer gold, but a dull yellow, his mouth set tightly, the muscles in his neck and arms taut with suppressed _something_. And Roy had to swallow his nausea down, because he saw in the lines of Ed's face the same fear that he had felt when he had woken from that terrible nightmare of a disappearing Elena, and the soft words she had spoken.

'It has nothing to do with that,' Ed forced out, and turned back to the house. 'It doesn't taste like alchemy that's familiar to me.'

'Taste?' Havoc echoed blankly, then turned to Roy. 'Is it possible to taste alchemy?'

Ed flinched, but attempted to cover it by a step onto the first of three stairs to Roy's porch. He ducked under the thorns as Roy answered, 'I believe it to be a talent belonging solely to Fullmetal.'

Ed shook his head, and water flew from his hair onto the leaves; Roy pulled Sophie away from the blossoms when they began to sizzle and pop, the steam of the water curling up in wisps.

Ed narrowed his eyes at the leaves, as Havoc edged away nervously. 'Why are they doin' that, Boss?' He asked, juggling his cigarette between his teeth.

'Don't touch them,' Ed said, a tad unnecessarily, then poked one experimentally. He pulled back his hand abruptly, and stuck it in his mouth with a curse. 'Keep Sophie away from them,' he snapped, and there was a heat in his words that reacted badly with Roy, made him jerk Sophie a bit too hard to the side. 'I'm going in to destroy it.'

'And how are you going to do that?' Roy shot back, mind suddenly dancing with dust-clouds and rubble.

Ed grinned at him, but there was no happiness in it. 'What kills plants?' he asked, a sharp edge to his voice Roy didn't like.

'Fire,' Roy said, watching as Ed's not-grin grew. 'But they seem too hot to burn well.'

'And what else?'

Roy frowned, confused; Elena had always been the one who liked plants, watering them, pruning them carefully, bringing them in before the first –

His head whipped up to stare at Ed, his mouth moving to form the words, but Ed had already turned, opened the door, and darted inside.

'Watch her,' he barked, and Havoc took the shaking Sophie as Roy dove in after Ed.

* * *

Ed snarled as a thorn caught the side of his hand, cauterising it as it went – that hot, that searing.

He had been right – the vines wove throughout the house, clinging to mementos of happier times like it fed on the memories, an egregore that would not fall, would cling and cling until its host was burned to ashes.

'Like fuck I'll let that happen,' he said, and broke into a short run, dodging low-slung ivy and fanning leaves. They might have been bullets, for the pain they would cause him if they hit, and his mind flashed to that battlefield, the one he had –

His mind screeched to a halt, refusing to go further, and he tried to rein in his shuddering, frantic breathing as he came into the living room. He was forced to step back, the heat coming up through his shoes; the floor was carpeted in the leaves, the ivy all that was visible on the walls, the ceiling a blur of red and orange roses. It was aesthetically beautiful, but deadly and infuriating. Ed longed to tear each vine up by hand, ripping them into pieces, and his hand raised, almost as if to do it.

A pale, cold hand snaked out and bit into his wrist, yanking it back – and with it, him. He stumbled back into a body that was taller than his own, and colder, but with a small core-warmth.

'I thought you said not to touch it,' Roy said, almost conversationally, but there was a tremor in his voice, too light to be faked. Ed swallowed hard, and almost tilted his head back to look Roy in the eyes – but no, that would be a stupid idea right now, calm down. Breathe.

'Sorry,' Ed said roughly, looking to the side, and pulled his wrist away. He could not do so with his body, unless he wanted to step into the living room, and so remained where he was, waiting for Roy to move.

He did, but not in the way Ed had expected – he leaned into him, and pointed over Ed's shoulder into the room. Ed's breath stuttered, and he fought to keep himself. _It's the alchemy_ , he thought desperately, _it's throwing you off, it's unhealthy, don't let it fool you_ –

And indeed, the alchemy eddied around him – but almost masking the copper-rottenness was a heavy, sharp metallic smell, not copper but something hotter, more painful.

'Those are the roses, aren't they,' Roy said.

Ed nodded, glaring spitefully at the knot of ivy that the taste was emanating from. The back of his head brushed against Roy's throat.

'Damn,' Roy sighed, then stepped back. Ed turned, able to breathe easier now that Roy wasn't crowding him, and froze in place. _Apropos_ , for Roy's next words, but he was rather focussed on the way Roy's eyes coated him with a thin sheen of ice, shielding him from the heat of the room behind him.

'Frost kills plants,' Roy said. 'You're going to freeze the plant to death.'

'Yep,' Ed said, the edges of his voice rough, and turned, hands prepared to clap. 'Stand back.'

'No.'

'Come on, Mustang,' Ed said without turning. 'Don't make me throw you out of your own house.' He shook his head as another thought occurred to him. 'Besides, you would kind of melt whatever ice I try to use.'

'Fullmetal,' Roy said warningly, voice snappish with cold.

'Well,' Ed amended, 'Keep that tone and you might help, after all.'

He clapped his hands and dropped to one knee, and watched as ice began to flood the living room, turning the leaves aquamarine, the red ceiling purple, the knot at the centre a dark, heavy indigo.

And then the ice began to melt.

* * *

Roy swore when he saw what was happening; the ice couldn't damp the heat for long, and so it just sizzled away – and if Ed took much more moisture from the air, their skin would crack. He suppressed a groan when Ed only scowled and started to press harder, dragging moisture from the air like a man bereft of drink for days and only know allowed to see water.

'You idiot,' Roy groaned, and snapped his fingers.

He heard Ed flinch, and would have felt bad for him, if he could have spared the concentration. But he had to focus on the red snarl of his alchemy, sparking at the tips of his fingers like a mad dog on a leash.

He could _use_ the array on the backs of his gloves for more than just explosions, but he hadn't in so long that it felt wrong to restrain the heat, direct it out the windows in spirals of steam that were no doubt startling Havoc and Sophie. It felt wrong to let something so purely fire, so familiar to him, die out to such a weak state as _ice_.

But as Ed tossed him a wild, fierce grin over his shoulder, it began to feel right.

And a little bit of the warmth crept into his own soul. A little more. And then there was such an up-welling of it that the heat Ed was struggling against was gone, devoured by Roy's too-cold soul, and the ice exploded outward, spiralling along stems and leaves and petals until every tendril, even the ones covering his house, were firmly and brilliantly extinguished.

There was too much heat, though – Roy hadn't felt so warm in so long. Even before he had met Ed, he had turned his soul cold, just for protection. And he... he couldn't...

He was too full, just the way Elena had told him never to be, full of triumph and rage and anger and something else. When Ed straightened like an ash in reverse, lighting the room with a grin even more wild than the one before, an ember rekindled, that Roy let that fullness sweep him forward and push Ed against the corner and kiss him, their mouths too warm together, too strong for him to bear.

He pulled back, and Ed stared up at him with burning, half-lidded eyes, and opened his mouth to say –

Sophie and Havoc burst into the room, and Roy felt it like a slap in the face. Hurriedly, he whispered, 'I'm sorry, fuck – Ed, just play along –' and then louder, 'You idiot, you shouldn't have _touched_ it!'

Sophie gasped, and Ed stared, and Havoc made a small noise of alarm and rushed over to attend to Ed's 'wounds'.

And Roy, breathing hard, let him, stepping away and trying to ignore the gaze upon him, heavier than a crown of gold.

* * *

 


	18. Chapter 18

* * *

**Sutra Eighteen: Hari _  
_**

* * *

Roy had kissed him. It had felt like that, too – abrupt and painful, but happy and strange, and –

Ed stared, trying to comprehend, and slapped Havoc's hands away as the man tried to find whatever wound Roy wanted him to pretend he had. 'I'm fine!' he snapped, and cradled his left hand to his body, as if it was burned. 'Leave me be!'

'Just tryin' to make sure you're okay, Boss,' Havoc said, anxiety making his country twang stronger.

'I'm _fine_ ,' Ed replied through gritted teeth. Sophie dashed up, face streaming with tears, and clung to his waist. Wetness, warm and unsettling, soaked through the front of his shirt, and something inside him softened.

He knelt and hugged her, wincing when the burn on his finger scraped on the rough fabric of his own jacket. She burrowed in deep, and whispered, 'Papi, I was so scared – then it went all icy – and I –'

'It's okay,' Ed murmured soothingly. 'It's gone. It's gone.'

'You made it go away,' she said, pulling back and wiping at her eyes.

'Your papa helped,' Ed said, and a cold sort of fire settled on his shoulders. It was Roy's gaze, he knew. He stood, Sophie still clinging, and looked back. Roy's dark eyes skated over his face, shuttered and freezing, and the words dried up in Ed's throat. What was he supposed to say to something like that?

He was saved by Havoc inspecting one of the blooms and saying, 'Shit, Boss, what'd you do to it?'

He turned to Havoc, sucking in a breath and expelling it slowly. 'I froze them. They're flowers. Ice kills them.' He stepped up beside Havoc, and fingered one of the petals; it snapped under his touch and crumbled in a fine silver dust that sparkled on his skin. 'All I could do. Couldn't burn them – they were made out of fire.' He sucked in a deep breath, reminded himself why he was here, and looked up at Roy determinedly. 'It's getting worse.'

To his relief, Roy looked to have gained some control over himself, because he nodded tightly, not saying anything. Ed still couldn't hold his gaze, though, and directed his next words to Havoc to spare himself the pain.

'I know I just got back, but I can't stay under these circumstances,' he said slowly. 'I'm going straight back to Risembool, because I need Al to look at this.'

He expected Roy to look startled, or something; maybe a look of anger, or of weary acceptance. What he most certainly did _not_ expect was for Roy to turn around, all of his broody darkness lost, and say loudly, 'You most certainly are _not_.'

Ed actually took a step back in surprise, before a growl, low and dangerous, took up residence in the back of his throat. 'You want to repeat that?' He snarled.

'You're not going,' Roy repeated blandly, but there was a dangerous sharpness in his eyes.

'I'll go where I damn well want to go!' Ed said hotly. Sophie stepped away and stood by Havoc; had either of the rowing men had the presence of mind to notice, they would have seen the hungry way her head snapped back and forth, watching them.

'You just returned from _automail surgery_ –'

'Damn right, I did! I walked into Central, didn't I –'

'You can't just disappear again –'

'Watch me! And besides, who are you to –'

'I'm your superior –'

'Superior my ass, I couldn't give a –'

'If you would stop and think for just one seco–'

'– And if you think, for just one moment, that I'm going t–'

'There are plenty of facilities in –'

'These facilities are shit! Al has more books in his head than –'

There was a tug on Ed's shirt, and he looked down mid-swear to see Sophie looking at hiim with wide, wide eyes. Roy fell still at the same moment, leaving a strange echoing silence. Then a muffled snicker made both of them whip around in unison and glare at Havoc, who was trying desperately to keep a neutral face.

'I'm sorry, Boss, Chief,' he said, his face a rictus of suppressed amusement. 'It was just like old days, that's all.'

Ed scowled spectacularly, and huffed. 'Outside, Mustang,' he said, jerking a thumb towards the vine-covered door. 'Now.'

'Is that an order, Ed?' Roy asked, and there was a dangerous note just under his voice.

'Havoc, take Sophie outside,' Ed snapped. Roy nodded, a fierce gleam flickering just behind his irises. The door closed behind them, and as Roy opened his mouth, Ed held up a hand.

'Look,' he said, and Roy fell still glaring all the while. 'I know you're trying to watch out for me. But – Roy –' Ed paused, and Roy's look softened, just slightly. 'Your house could have burned to the ground. Sophie could have burned her hands to bits just touching the flowers – and she's a little girl who loves flowers, don't give me any lines about her knowing not to touch them.'

'I wasn't going to,' Roy said, voice calmer – but cooler.

'It's happening because I'm here,' Ed continued after a moment, letting the tone wash away his emotions and thinking clearly, trying to formulate a plan as he spoke. 'It all is – the dolls, the roses –'

'Elena?' Roy said quietly, and Ed froze.

* * *

Roy watched as the colour in Ed's face bled away, leaving his skin the texture of wood. His eyes were absolutely still, the gold colour deeper than it had any right to be; it was warm in way that Roy didn't like – an atmospheric oddity, perhaps, at odds with the chill seeping through the walls as the rain washed down the coal-cold vines.

Roy was calm, himself; it was a hunch that made him interrupt Ed with Elena's name, and as he watched Ed open and close his automail fist, a mercuric slide of metal on metal, he wondered just how close to home he had struck. 'Ed?'

'Not – not here,' Ed managed. 'Please. Not here. I – I don't – f-fuck.' And with that, Ed sat down hard on the floor, and a picture frame fell over onto the ivy-carpet. Roy waited, almost politely, for the glass to smash before he spoke.

'Ed,' He said softly, but the younger alchemist refused to lift his head. 'Ed.' He crouched beside Ed, and Ed sucked in a breath before looking up.

'Come on,' He said after a moment, where Ed's face steadily paled. 'We have train tickets to buy.'

'What?' Ed said, scrabbling backwards a few inches.

'You're going to Risembool, right?' Roy said sensibly, standing and extending a hand. 'We should buy tickets for tonight's train. Havoc can call Al and expl–'

'No – wait –' Ed looked bewildered. 'I can't bring you guys! What if I accidentally transmute the train into water mid trip, or something?'

'We'll transmute it back, then,' Roy said, then called Havoc in. He opened the door, and Sophie peeked behind his legs.

'Are you and Ed done shouting, Papa?' she said, and when Roy nodded, she ran forwards. 'Good,' she said, when she was burrowed in the crook of his neck. 'You two shouldn't fight.'

'We always have,' Roy said idly as Havoc dragged Ed out to the car, leaving the two of them in the ivy-strewn house.

'So?' Sophie asked seriously. 'You never meant it, did you?'

'Sometimes,' Roy said, thinking of the times when he and Ed had been but seconds from blows.

'Even so,' Sophie said, frowning now. 'When Anda and I fight and we mean it, we still like each other afterwards.'

Roy, desperate now to distract her, said, 'I understand. Do you want to ride on a train?'

Not his most graceful subject-change, but probably one of his more effective, he thought as Sophie's demeanour changed entirely. 'A train!' she clapped excitedly. 'Are we going to see Uncle Al and Aunt Winry?'

'Yes, we are,' Roy confirmed, and watched with a bittersweet sensation as she dashed up the stairs for her things, mindlessly avoiding the draping vines.

He would have given anything to be that cheerful or optimistic; his daughter had such a foreign personality. So much of her mother shone out of her, even at her age. It didn't matter that her eyes were more yellow than Elena's earthy hazel, or her skin a deeper shade than either of her parents'. Someone could, perhaps, look at her and say she was related to the Elrics (as had, according to Sophie last night, the florist who had given her the sprig of white narcissus the first Day Ed had returned.) There was within her a part of Elena that would never die, no matter how many dreams haunted Roy at night.

He turned, and frowned at the front door down the hall. Through the window on the left, he could see Ed speaking rapidly into the mouthpiece of his car-phone, the door shut against the onslaught of rain. He would have to speak with Ed on that count, actually. An image of Ed's wood-pale face flashed before his eyes for a moment; then he went to the phone on the wall, first to call the train station, then to call a cleaning service. As he went, a thought haunted the crevasses of the back of his mind, and it spoke with Elena's voice.

_Why did Ed look so afraid?_

* * *

' _Already, Brother?_ ' Al said drily, and Ed winced.

'It's not the automail,' he said, and was almost amused when Al sighed a very real breath of relief on the other end. 'It's... do you remember what I was telling you, about –' he glanced up and down the street; the fireworks had faded, but curious faces still appeared in windows. Roy would have a hell of a time explaining away this event and their subsequent disappearance.

' _Ed?_ '

'About the research project?' Ed phrased slowly. He could almost hear the click and whir of Al's mind as it locked onto the seeming non sequitur.

' _Yeah. You said that you could handle it, though._ '

'I thought I could,' Ed said, wincing at the admission. 'But – well, some things blew up in my face, and now Roy, Sophie and I need to come to Risembool.'

' _Our house is always open,_ ' Al said at once, and and an invisible pressure disappeared from Ed's gut; he smiled fondly down at the car seat, because the one he wanted to smile at was so far away. Havoc sat in the seat beside him, and at Ed's glance opened his door and left the car, appearing to be investigating the vines that still clung to the wall. ' _Do you need to just get away from Central, or –_ '

'No, I can't do this on my own,' Ed said, sitting up taller. 'I need your brain and mine, and Roy's,' he added after a moment, reflecting on how pissed Roy would be if he was left out of this.

' _I haven't been a theoretical alchemist for years, Brother,_ ' Al warned. ' _I'll do what I can, but –_ '

'I haven't been able to do alchemy at all for a very long time,' Ed interrupted. There was a silence at the end of the phone.

' _Good thing Roy's coming,_ ' Al said pragmatically. ' _I think he might be more educated than either of us, at the moment._ ' Another moment of silence, then Al said, ' _Should I tell Winry to expect guests tomorrow?_ '

'That'd be best,' Ed agreed, and they exchanged a few more pleasantries before he hung up. Then he put his head in his hands, and let it rest there, suspended between his palms.

He knew Roy was going to interrogate him soon. He hated knowing that, because the anticipation would crack him infinitely better than any question Roy posed. If he hadn't been so startled that Roy would add that to the list of things he'd done to hurt Roy, no matter how accidentally he had done them, he could have just –

 _Lied?_ Ed thought viciously. _Forever? Until the day you died? You would have told him eventually. Yeah, it hurt,_ he thought, looking to the house through the sheets of rain, _but you need to own up to what you did. If you killed this world's Elena, you need to face the consequences._

Ed suddenly, in a bright moment of epiphany, could fathom what had made his father abandon them as children – the pursuit of simplicity, and the dismissal of the complex.

'Well,' he muttered to himself. 'I'm not Dad. I'm not that.'

He would face the complexities and forsake the simple, easy path.

But that didn't mean the simple, easy path wasn't tempting.

* * *

 


	19. Chapter 19

* * *

**Sutra Nineteen: Kowaku**

* * *

The train car was silent, and Roy wondered if this had been a good idea. That question had occurred to him many times in the past hour, as Ed stared gloomily out the window and Sophie slept peacefully on Roy's lap, along with some indefinable sense of foreboding. His hand stroked along the side of Sophie's head idly, and she snuffled slightly before turning more to the carriage seat, as if to bundle herself up in her dreams.

Silence wore on. The smooth clacking of the wheels over the train tracks and hum of the engine only served to wear on Roy's nerves, and he had to force himself to unclench his jaw twice. Ed didn't even flinch at the audible cracking noise, only stared out the window. He was much better at ignoring people now that the years had passed.

Roy was trying harder not to think that way, but right now he felt it was an uphill battle. He wasn't certain that he even _knew_ Ed anymore – he oscillated so often between the Ed he knew and an Ed who had grown up on an alien world that it made Roy's head hurt.

Outside, night was tumbling down to kiss the horizon, the pale blue of the afternoon finally, _finally_ giving way, and as if Ed recognised the metaphor, he turned, sighed quietly, and said, 'I'm sorry.'

Roy flinched, as struck, and Ed's eyes closed tightly. 'Really, I am,' he said, and the sheer earnestness in his voice as he apologised was from the alien half of Ed. 'It's my fault this shit's happening.'

'Not all of it,' Roy reminded quietly, and the tightly closed eyes squeezed tighter. 'Ed?' Roy said after a minute of thick silence. 'Not all of it.'

'I can't afford to talk about this here,' Ed said, his voice old, and a feeling of familiarity settled on Roy. 'Neither, frankly, can you.' He opened his eyes, and his irises looked as if they had been hammered into place from tired-out antique gold. 'We can talk about this when we're somewhere without listeners.' The eyes flicked to Sophie, and Roy nodded.

That was another thing that had been bothering him, lately, he thought as they lapsed into silence again. Ed returned to the nightscape outside the window, and Roy looked back down towards Sophie.

She had been acting... very strange. At least half of that could be credited to the recent death of her mother ( _empty_ ), but certainly not most of it. She said things these days that his sweet, thoughtful daughter from before the accident ( _empty, empty_ ) would never have thought. It felt almost like she had regressed into childhood instead of becoming _more_ sombre, like most children ( _like Elysia – empty empty empoh, shit, she's waking up.)_

'Papa...?' she said slowly, sitting up. She shook her head, her eyes a dusty yellow-green. 'Where are w –'

Had Roy not been watching, he wouldn't have seen the abrupt flood of yellow into her eyes, the lightening of realisation. 'The train?' she asked, and Roy nodded.

'Just go to sleep, sweetheart,' he said softly. 'We'll be there in the morning.'

'She nodded sleepily and lay her head down again; still, there was a sense of uneasiness in Roy's joints. What... what _if..._

No. Surely not. He had to be getting old.

* * *

It was very early morning when they pulled into Risembool, the train clacking into place like so many connected puzzle pieces, and Ed rubbed the unspent sleep from his eyes. Even Roy had managed to drift off a few hours before, but Ed couldn't find the peace of mind or stillness of body to let himself dream away the hours, and so had instead watched the night-ridden land slip by, the wind stirring the occasional fields, the trees, his heart.

He was tired again – it felt as if it was the same day he had left behind on Earth, the storm raging wildly beside the swiftly ferocious beast in his veins, the water – his death – calling to him so very, very sweetly. But now his future stretched in front of him, bleak, exhausting. As the train entered a familiar landscape, it took a lot for him not to sigh.

In another way, the night had felt like his first trip to Central in reverse. That night, he had been too terrified that someone would stop him and his huge, armour-clad brother to sleep, so he and Al had sat and watched the world pass in silence, letting the magnitude of it wash away their little corner of the universe.

He stood, and hesitated a moment over Roy and Sophie. Roy was asleep, peaceful as he would never be awake, but Sophie's face was twisted up in what Ed recognised from experience as a nightmare.

She twitched, this way and that, and Ed debated waking her up; sometimes it was better for kids to defeat their own nightmares. Her hands spasmed open and closed though, and her body's jerking were frighteningly violent. As her face morphed back and forth from a concentrated snarl to a whimper of fear, he reached out to shake her –

Her eyes flew open, and there Ed saw the most intense portrait of terror in a haze of green-yellow sleep.

She lashed out, catching him on the shoulder, and whisper-screamed, 'Help me, oh, help me, mist-' before she awoke fully. She sat up like a shot, rubbing her eyes, and then seemed to realise he was standing in front of her in shock.

'Sorry, Papi,' she said sheepishly, and laughed; the high, uneasy shrill quality woke Roy, who shuddered into consciousness like a man resurfacing. 'Sorry, Papa,' she repeated, when he looked between them oddly. 'I had a nightmare.'

Roy's face softened, but before he could say anything the ticket master peered in.

'We've arrived,' the man said. 'Will you need help with your luggage?'

'Thanks, but we have it,' Ed said, and picked up his own pitiful pack and Sophie's case. She smiled at him and said thank you very quietly, but there was a look of discomfort on her face. She turned away, but not before Ed noticed it.

Her eyes were suddenly a very, very bright yellow.

* * *

Roy paused outside the train car, and let the brief grey light of dawn clear his eyes of sleep; behind him, Sophie was silent and clutching Ed's hand. He shook his head to free himself of the final cobwebs as, to his right, a voice called out,

'Over here!'

He turned and smiled at Winry as she ran up; she smiled back, then turned to Ed and glared ferociously.

'Did you _already_ break your automail?' she asked heatedly.

Ed's face blanched. 'I didn't, I _swear_!'

'Good, that's what Al said,' she smirked, abruptly cheerful. She bent down, and smiled at Sophie. 'Hey, darlin'! How're you doing?'

'I'm okay,' Sophie said faintly. 'Auntie,' she added, almost as an afterthought.

'That's good,' Winry said, and held out her hand. Sophie hesitated, her hand tightening on Ed's.

'It's okay,' Ed said, and she nodded, releasing him and quickly taking Winry's hand in replacement. Winry led her to the car amid light chatter, and Roy went to follow.

'Is Sophie... okay?'

He looked back at Ed, surprised; Ed was flexing his hand, as if wondering at the strength of Sophie's grip. He looked up, and the rich yellow startled Roy. 'I mean...' he started, then huffed. 'I don't know much about kids, but before she woke up from her nightmare, she was begging for help.'

Before Roy could respond, Ed scowled and scrubbed at his face. 'No, that's not what I meant,' he said. 'She was sort of... screaming under her breath. And I think she called me mister, like she didn't recognise me.'

'She had nightmares as a child,' Roy replied, and turned back to watch Winry buckle Sophie into the car. 'She wouldn't recognise me or Elena, even if we shook her awake.'

'As a child?' Ed repeated, and Roy flinched. 'What does that mean?'

'I...' Roy hesitated, then shook his head. 'Slip of the tongue.'

Ed's eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and he nodded after a moment. 'Alright,' he said, and without another word set off towards the car. Roy followed, puzzling over his own words.

Why _had_ he said that? She was only six. Still a child; yet the phrase had sounded right in Roy's mind. He shook his head for the umpteenth time in the early morning.

He had to be getting older. Such contradictions wouldn't exist if his brain were well. Perhaps a rest here with Al and Winry had been the best idea after all.

* * *

Ed followed Winry up the steps, Sophie still clutching her hand as if it was her last lifeline. The nightmare earlier had clearly shaken her up, he thought darkly; the way she hadn't recognised him, the colour of her eyes (which was something he had never noticed her eyes did, before now), the way she clung to whatever adult was closest.

Roy and Winry's hands were soon occupied with luggage, so Ed took the chance to pull Sophie aside; she followed, eyes wide and trusting, but her hands were shaky.

'Are you alright, Sophie?' he asked, and she shrugged.

'I'm fine, Papi,' she said, and held out her hand; he took it, and she smiled for the first time since her nightmare. 'It was just a bad dream. Sometimes, when I feel all dark and twisty, I get them.'

'Dark... and twisty?' Ed repeated, confused. She had said something like that before (along with the phrase _bright and shiny_ ) but he had dismissed it as the rambling talk of a child looking for hope. But now, her eyes were bright and serious, with a yellow colour that was almost _too_... too yellow.

'Papa calls it 'dispersion', I think,' she said, clearly trying to remember the word.

'Depression,' Ed corrected, and she nodded.

'Yeah, that. It's okay, Papi,' she said earnestly. 'I'm okay now. I'm just...' she shook her head. 'I'm just nervous.'

That was said less like a six-year-old and more like a sixteen-year-old, Ed realised slowly. At that moment, however, Anda came out the door, looking sleepy.

Sophie physically lit up, and turned in place. 'Anda!' she said happily, and all but sprinted towards the other girl.

Anda yawned, and looked up, and that's when it happened.

She tensed horribly, hunching over her back, and stepped away hurriedly. 'L-leave me alone!' she shouted in a wavering voice. All of the adults paused, even as Sophie froze.

'W... what?' Sophie said, looking bewildered. Her yellow eyes flitted over Anda's face. 'Anda, I'm here!' She looked like she was trying to hold onto her happiness with both fists.

'Stay away!' Anda said, and hid behind her mother. 'You're not supposed to be here!'

'Anda!' Winry said, loudly, glaring, then looked to Sophie apologetically. 'I'm sorry, darlin', I don't know what's wrong with her.' She looked back to Anda, stepping out of the way so that Anda was forced to face Sophie. 'Apologise to Sophie right now – she didn't do anything to you!'

'No!' Anda said, and stamped her foot.

'Anda...' Sophie said, holding out her hand. Anda recoiled from it, as if it was covered in slime.

'Liam!' she shouted, and the cry was loud and desperate; Ed stepped forward out of instinct, so great was the fear in her voice. Roy stepped forward as well, reaching out for Sophie as Liam came outside, looking puzzled.

'Anda, what -'

'Anda!' Sophie cried out, piercingly sad, and reached out for Anda, catching her wrist.

Anda screamed, a soaring high note of terror, and lashed out with her fists, trying to free herself with all the fervour of a wounded animal. Sophie's face closed up in a wall of anger and pain, and she fought back, nails digging into Anda's skin until blood ran. Red marks appeared on Sophie's skin where Anda struck her, and all this in a few seconds of combat.

Liam waded in and pulled them apart an instant before Roy and Ed got there, shielding Anda from Sophie's nails, and pushing her away. Sophie toppled with a cry backwards onto the porch, and Roy kneeled beside her, exclaiming angrily. Ed stood, stunned, as Sophie tried to claw her way out of her father's arms, reaching for Anda, who was sobbing, buried in her brother's chest.

'Anda!' Winry screeched as Al came out of the house, looking afraid. 'How could you? What were you thinking?'

'Sophie – Sophie, _stop_!' Roy commanded, and Sophie fell still, the whole group in silence just as Anda whispered to Liam, who nodded in agreement,

'That isn't – that isn't my Soph!'

* * *

 


	20. Chapter 20

* * *

**Sutra 20: Yuusei**

* * *

Ed froze, shocked, and Sophie renewed her attempts to free herself from her father's arms, even as Anda shook her head desperately into Liam's chest. 'No, no, no, no, no...' she chanted over and over. Ed looked from the frenzied Sophie to the sobbing Anda, and tried to make sense of what had happened.

'What's _wrong_ with you, Anda?' Winry said, sounding furious; she stepped forward, a sharp word no doubt on her tongue, but Ed got there first and knelt beside the two frightened children.

'What do you mean, that's not Sophie?' he asked, and Anda shook her head frantically; it was Liam who answered, looking discomfited as he tried to put it into words.

'That's not Soph – well, it _is_ Soph, a bit, but only in the back,' he said finally. 'The person who Uncle Roy is holding isn't Sophie, though.' He nodded as if he had done the explanation justice, though he had done nothing of the sort, and started to shush Anda, who was staring, haunted-eyed, over Ed's shoulder at Sophie. The other girl lay, limp and frighteningly blank-faced, as Roy tried to get her to respond.

'In the back?' Ed pressed; Anda nodded, this time.

'She's hiding. You can see her, but She's keeping her back.'

'She?' Ed asked quickly, but before Anda could respond:

'Oh, this is ridiculous!' Winry shouted. 'Liam, take your sister inside this instant! She is not to leave her room, and –'

'Winry,' Ed interrupted, 'There's something going on here. I don't know if Anda's right, but something is off about this whole thing.'

'Off? _Off_?' Winry snapped dangerously, and Ed bristled right back. 'This is _my_ child, Ed, and though she might have you hoodwinked, _I'm_ at least sensible enough to know bullshit when I hear it!'

Ed stood abruptly. 'She's your daughter, right?' He challenged. 'So you should know her better than anyone? Then why, little miss Sensible, would a girl who was brave enough to kick me on sight when I made her mother cry try to run away from a little girl she's known her whole life?'

'There's a logical explanation!' Winry snapped, scowling fiercely. 'Up, Anda! You are to stay in your room until you are willing to apologise to Sophie, or so help me God, I'll have you polishing every piece of metal in my shop!'

'Winry.'

Winry froze, and looked over at Roy, who was very, very pale but very, very determined looking. 'I need a bed immediately. If you could also get a bowl of ice water and a cloth, I would appreciate it.'

'Why?' Ed said before Winry, but he could see it in the tight brackets around Roy's mouth.

Very, very calmly, Roy said, 'Because Sophie's unconscious, and I don't think she's breathing.'

* * *

Roy stared over the dark hills, trying not to spontaneously scream. Sophie had not woken up, not even fluttered her eyelids, since Roy had laid her down that morning. She had not even twitched when he tried to soothe her fever with cool cloths and soft words. And she may yet be breathing, but it was so shallow that the room had to be in absolute silence before the soft rasp of air through lungs could be heard.

He didn't know what to do, as he stared at his child, paler than Death Herself, and he didn't know what to do. The world was ending, and he didn't know what to do. He could scream and shriek and bleat his rage to the skies, and he still wouldn't know what to do. Elena was gone, and Sophie was leaving, and so many people had left already that he couldn't imagine losing another. He would fight, but he didn't know what he should be fighting – in a room of smoke and mirrors, and all he could see was his own reflection.

Outside the sun blazed in bright, terrible defiance of Sophie's unconsciousness. He wanted to screech at the impertinence of it, at the _idea_ that anything could shine, could be happy and light and full of life, _when he couldn't even hear his own daughter breathe anymore_. But all the railing in the world wouldn't do anything. Nothing. He, Roy Mustang, Flame Alchemist, Lieutenant General, could do absolutely nothing.

'Hey.'

His head snapped up as Ed walked in. Roy expected all of the blazing light outside to follow Ed into the dark, cold little room he hid in, and he almost opened his moth to snap at him, to shove him away. He paused, though, when he actually saw Ed. His hair seemed dull in the dim lighting, his eyes empty, his skin sallow; he looked, in fact, as awful as Roy felt. But there was the hard line of a gritted jaw, the familiar narrow-eyed glare of determination, and Roy realised with no small amount of wonder that Ed was still trying.

And if Ed, who had died not once, not twice, but _three_ times, could still hold onto hope, then Roy sure as hell could.

'Let's let her sleep,' Ed said, and his voice was tattered at the edges. 'Hovering won't do any good. If she wakes, Al knows where to find us.'

'Where are we going?' Roy said, suddenly to spent to argue.

'You'll see.'

He followed Ed out of the room, but not without pausing and looking at Sophie. He was unsurprised to feel Ed do the same beside him, but neither said a word.

Ed led him out of the house, into fields of still-green wheat and corn (that was right, Risembool was agricultural, wasn't it?) and past them into woods. The walk wasn't long, just... quiet. Roy realised that he didn't like that, and looked at Ed.

'Will she be alright?'

He didn't know why he was asking, but Ed sighed and stopped, turning to face him full on. 'I don't know,' he said honestly. 'If I knew what was wrong with her, I...' his voice faltered. 'I would help. But I'm not sure if I'm right. I'm not. I can't be. I'm –' he stopped stumbling over his words, looking frustrated for a moment, then gave him a helpless grimace. 'I'm sorry. I think this is my fault. You and Sophie should have stayed in Central.'

'I couldn't have left you.'

Ed looked at him, and Roy sighed. 'Come on. Let's go.'

Ed was silent a moment more, then nodded, and they continued on. This time, when Roy noted the silence and his discomfort with it, he put up with it.

They finally reached a familiar landscape of river stones and rushing water, and they sat on two boulders. The sun still gleamed meanly off the water, too bright for Roy's tastes; he only sat, still as the stone beneath him, and stared at the glittering water until he was blinded. Let assassins come, and political rivals, and wars, and the ghosts of the men he had killed and the shock of Elena's death. Let them all come. What could they do?

'He was my North,' Ed said suddenly, and Roy looked at him, startled. 'My South, my East and West, / My working week and my Sunday rest, / My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;,' Ed continued, and when the sunspots had faded Roy could see the faint hint of a blush along Ed's cheekbones. His eyes were closed, though, and he couldn't see Roy's gaze. 'I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.'

He opened his eyes, and turned half way, so that Roy could see that he was still determined, even if he looked beaten down. 'The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; / Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; / Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. / For nothing now can ever come to any good.'

They were silent a moment more, gazes locked like crossed swords, until Roy murmured, 'What was that?'

'W.H. Auden,' Ed said sheepishly. 'Funeral Blues.' He curled up so that his knees were just under his chin, and he was balanced so delicately, a gyroscope at the height of its spin. 'I know. You don't have him here. But that's what it feels like.'

Roy felt peace for the briefest of seconds, and laid his palm face up on the rock between them. The peace fled, but his hand remained, and after a moment of the loudest silence he had ever known, Ed uncrossed his arms and placed his left hand atop it.

'Um.'

Ed and Roy sprang apart, startled, and about ten feet below their perch Al stood very sheepishly, red-faced as hell and trying hard not to grin. The glance he shot towards Roy promised all sorts of interrogation, but he could deal with that. Then he remembered what Ed had said, and he all but leapt down to Al. 'Is she awake? Is she okay?'

'No, she's still asleep,' Al said, sounding apologetic. 'But we got these for you and Ed.'

He held out two telegrams, one of which had Ed's name, one of which had his. On each, the sender's name was listed.

Fuhrer Cenno.

* * *

Ed followed Roy down at a slightly more sedate pace. He hadn't even known that he remembered that poem; he'd read it once in Earth-Elena's library. That was it. But he'd looked over at Roy, and the words had come tumbling out – an elegy to grief and sadness and all the rest of it, the sensation that nothing bright should exist when all of your happiness was gone.

He blinked when he saw that he had a telegram, but his jaw all but dropped when he saw who it was from.

_Major Edward Elric STOP_

_I know where you were during your travels STOP I see no need to state the location here, but rest assured that it is a place unlike any here in our world STOP_

Ed felt his blood freeze. That old, giant _bastard_! How could he know? Ed had been certain he had not let anything slip that he was telling a lie, much less that he'd been on Earth.

_I, too, have visited this location STOP_

Ah. That made a little more sen–

'Wait,' Ed said aloud, and Al looked over at him. 'What the fuck?'

Al hurried over, and Ed read the rest of the message with him over his shoulder.

_I understand how you might be surprised, and even afraid that I possess this knowledge STOP But I have little time to send you this message, and some things need to be addressed STOP I have already heard about the ivy over Lieutenant General Mustang's home, and congratulate you on solving the problem admirably; however, you must understand that more of that is likely to happen, unless you listen very carefully STOP_

_By passing through the Door instead of just opening it, you have invited the Door into your blood – and, perhaps more importantly, your alchemy STOP You must cleanse your blood, or anything you touch alchemically will fester and rot into the nightmares of those closest to you STOP This can only be done by alchemy itself, which presents nothing but conundrum STOP Two other brave volunteers must help you cleanse your alchemy, via a blood circle STOP This is illegal, however, so under NO CIRCUMSTANCES save dire emergency should you attempt this STOP_

_I wish you best of luck in seeking your fortune STOP_

_Fuhrer Cenno_

That explained everything. Why Cenno's eyes were too hard for his face, why he had felt all wrong when Ed had met him. Blood arrays were notorious for backfiring and causing the opposite effect, so if Cenno had attempted it and failed, it could have taken away his alchemy entirely. Ed knew from memories of windows over bathroom sinks that his own eyes had grown painfully hard in his last few days on Earth.

'But "seeking my fortune"?' Ed said, turning to look at Al. 'What the hell does that mean?'

A light cough behind him reminded Ed that Roy was still there, and he turned to see him almost as pale as his daughter. 'Roy?' Ed ventured, a little unnerved by the wild look in his eyes.

'Fuhrer Cenno is dead,' Roy said quietly, and the letter fell from his fingers, was buoyed by a light wind, and set almost gently onto the river.

* * *

Roy wasn't certain what he looked like at the moment, but from the glance the brothers shared, he felt pretty confident that it wasn't pretty.

'How did he die?' Ed asked, and Al sputtered beside him.

'Ed!'

'What?' Ed asked defensively, turning to his brother. 'It's a legitimate question!'

'Have a little respect for the dead!'

'I am – I want to know who did it!'

Roy flinched at that, and Ed's eyes were on him in a second. 'It was a murder, wasn't it?' Ed asked seriously. 'No way a big man like that just dropped dead of a cold.'

'It was murder,' Roy affirmed, and Ed nodded. 'They have no idea who. They sent their condolences, and told me that one of his last acts was to promote me – though short of making me a full general, I don't know what they plan to do. The rank wasn't listed.'

Ed was staring at him. 'A full general?'

'Yes.'

'That's –' Ed closed his eyes and opened them a split second later. 'At least two hundred forty thousand troops.'

'I know.'

'How many generals does Amestris have?'

'If they actually promote me? Five.'

Ed looked bowled over. 'That's over a million troops, Roy.'

'I know,' Roy said, his heart as heavy as the river stones. He looked from Ed, to Al, then turned to face the direction of the house.

'We need to take care of Sophie, and fast,' Roy said calmly, 'Because I think Amestris is going to war.'

* * *

 


	21. Chapter 21

* * *

  
**Sutra 21: Kenky** **û**   


* * *

Ed did not like the sound of that.

'War,' he repeated, and Roy nodded heavily. 'You have got to be fucking kidding me.'

'You've been gone too long, Brother,' Al said, almost reproachfully. 'The politics between the countries of this world have degenerated a _lot_ since you were last here.'

'But over a million troops?' Ed shot back. He whipped back to Roy. 'Are all of them mobilised?'

'They will be before the month is out,' Roy said. His face was a suspicious blank, as obtrusive as levelled ground surrounded by rubble. Ed did _not_ like that face. 'Fuhrer Cenno's body was found in his home, in a pool of blood, and there was a gun found on the scene. It was of Areugian make. We have no choice but to believe that someone who was recently in Areugo has killed the Fuhrer.'

Ed felt as he'd been slapped. 'Shit, Roy,' he said. 'Everyone thinks that until a couple days ago –'

'I know. There was also a warrant for your arrest in the telegram.'

Ed froze. Roy looked at him, staring blankly, but there was something cold about his gaze. Ed took a step back.

This was wrong. He could feel it like a breath of wind in the air between them, too cold, a shiver down his spine.

'But Brother was on Earth,' Al said, looking between them. 'He said so himself. Roy, I really don't think that –'

'Murderers will say anything to get what they need,' Roy said slowly. Ed flinched. 'I don't want to believe it, Al, but look at the facts.

'Ed has been missing from Amestris for fourteen years. In that time, Areugo has grown increasingly hostile. They do not have the size nor the funding for most researchers, so what would have they offered him for his services?' His eyes were colder and colder, weirdly paler, and when he saw, he could feel the air leaving his lungs. There was a pale-yellow glaze there. 'Something pretty substantial, I'd suppose.'

Ed bristled, glazed eyes forgotten. Roy knew him – knew nothing but death itself could keep him away from Al. How could he?

'Maybe it was materials for a Stone, or power, or –'

'You shut the fuck up,' Ed snapped. Roy stopped, looking at him with something akin to shock. 'You shut your fucking mouth.'

He was shaking. He could _feel_ his muscles quivering with the desire to strike out – but what good would that do? What good did any of it do? Roy was –

'How dare you,' Ed growled, and he took a step forward. 'I trusted you. I thought you _made up_ that story to satisfy everyone! When did you start believing your own lies?'

'I don't believe anything,' Roy said, and his voice was rougher. 'I'm stating facts, Ed, not –'

'Facts? _Facts?_ This is fucking speculation, and I can't believe you're judging me on _the fucking country the gun was from_!' Ed flung his hand through the air in agitation, and Roy flinched away. Something inside Ed broke, then; Roy honestly thought there was even a chance – a sliver of one – 'You've been with me the entire time! There's no way I could have –'

'You could have given the gun to someone else,' Roy said immediately, voice flat as if reciting from a textbook. 'You could have arranged to smuggle someone else across the border. You could have slipped away before we left. At the time of the telegram, they didn't yet have an estimate on how long he'd been dead, but it was over eighteen hours. Placing you squarely in the city when it happened.'

Ed growled and fisted his left hand in his hair.

'Roy,' Al said, and his voice was heavy as iron. 'There is no way my brother could have killed the Fuhrer. He has no motivation –'

'Unless,' Roy argued, seemingly relieved to turn away from Ed, 'he was _here_ all along –'

'I believe my brother,' Al said, and there was no uncertainty in the way he spoke. 'He wasn't even on this planet. He has no reason to have killed Fuhrer Cenno, who seems to share knowledge of this other world.' Al stepped forward, and it was a far more menacing step than any Ed could have taken. 'Why are you so determined to blame Brother?'

* * *

Roy's head hurt; it felt like someone had come along and split it in half – and one side hated him tremendously. There was a war within his thoughts, one side pointing to all of the evidence that Ed was innocent, and that Roy was out of line; the other half warned him of having placed his faith in a silly dream – of course Ed was lying. Why had he chosen to believe in an other world, instead of what was in front of his eyes?

 _Because I missed him, and because he's Ed, and when I needed him he_ came _and that is enough –_

Half of his mind felt different – colder, angrier, like an explosion of ice. It didn't even feel like his own voice.

_ It  _ isn't _ enough, how could that be enough? It's illogical, it's horrific – he has  _ lied _ to you, like he has so many times in the past – why did you trust him this time – where is your head? _

Words spilled out of his mouth without his say-so – accusing Ed left and right, contradicting himself in ways that he normally never would. _Of course Ed couldn't have killed Cenno,_ he whispered into the maelstrom of his divided but unconquered mind. _He was with me – like he should be – always with me –_

 _But was he?_ The cold half of his mind whispered back coaxingly. _There were times he could have slipped away, times he could have –_

 _No,_ Roy tried to argue, as more words tried to spill out of his mouth, stilted sentences he was ashamed of. _No, not Ed. Leave them alone. Leave Ed and Sophie and me alone. Leave us alone._

The crashing sounds in his mind faltered, but its control over his mouth continued, speaking harsh words he could never mean – _Oh, Ed, forgive me_ – and Roy took the advantage presented. He took his own thoughts, all the _Leave us alone_ s and the _Ed, forgive me_ s and _leave us leave us leave us leave_ s and wove them together, chaining them and welding them together. And the sounds began to pause, as if curious as to why something was fighting them. Roy knew, then, and fought harder.

This wasn't his mind. Something – someone – some _how_ was attacking him. And he'd had _enough_.

There was a hiss, and the thoughts tried to capture him, hold him tightly, but he snapped at them with his own, memories of Sophie's smile and Ed's laughter and the way he felt in the light of early evening, lying gracelessly on the dirt and listening to Ed speaking, listening to Sophie humming. The warmth. He remembered the warmth of that afternoon...

 _But don't you understand?_ The thoughts asked nastily. _I was already there._

Images of Sophie cycled through, moments where her eyes shined particularly bright, where she said things beyond her years – the night where she had ferreted out his feelings for Ed.

Her eyes, gleaming a yellow that was not natural, even if they had been Ed's eyes.

_NO_

His soul-deep rejection rang out like a hammer on a gong, ripping the thoughts out by the roots, and there was a loud cry of pain.

When he felt water and stones beneath his hands, he realised the the cry had been _his_.

The sounds were fading, and he was starting to feel sensations again – he could feel a warm arm looped over his back and a warmer one braced on his chest. He could hear Ed's calls of, 'Roy? _Roy_!'

He choked out one of his thoughts, and it felt so much better for having been said that his already hazy vision began to black out. Ed's hands tightened on him as Roy spat weakly, 'Ed, forgive me.'

The last thing he saw before succumbing completely was Elena's face, grotesquely twisted in a rictus of pain as she screamed.

* * *

Ed knew that Al was terrified, but that was nothing to how Ed felt as he dragged Roy away from the river's edge. He _understood_ now.

That made it so much worse.

Groaning, he slung Roy's prone form over his shoulders and stood, not as straight as he'd have liked but capable of carrying him. He gave Al a look when he tried to help, and he acquiesced reluctantly, walking behind Ed in case the shorter brother couldn't carry Roy on his own.

Al had been too busy shouting to see it, but Ed remembered how Roy's eyes had slowly turned a very deep yellow – a darker version of the yellow Sophie's eyes had turned just after her nightmare on the train. Something had taken over Roy. It was steadily more obvious as the fight went on: Roy's arguments lost their cohesiveness, often contradicting something he had said in the previous sentence, and there had been moments where his fierce expression faded to one of deep pain. And then he had cried out, and Ed had only just managed to catch him before he dashed his head on the rocks.

And then... fuck, it had broken Ed's heart when he asked for forgiveness before collapsing.

'Brother?'

Al sounded small, but determined, so like he had when he inhabited the armour that Ed's clumsy pat almost missed his shoulder, Ed having reached high to accommodate the suit's height.

'Something took Roy over,' Ed said, and he could feel the fury in his voice like the small flames that start a wildfire. 'The same thing that took over Sophie.'

* * *

It was the still of the night when Roy woke again, mind sore and exhausted after his bout with – whatever it was that had invaded him. He refused to place the name that tried to leap to his tongue to the force that had battered him so completely. He was shaken. That was all.

The room he was in was one of the small guest rooms in the back of the house; just by looking at the ceiling, he knew that he was in the room across from where Sophie was. He wanted to leap up, see if anything had changed, but his body felt leaden. It hurt even to blink.

'Are you awake?'

Roy managed to turn his head. Ed sat there beside him, gold eyes burning in the darkness like lamps, taking in every stray glint of light and reflecting it back on Roy. His face was set in hard lines, but it softened when Roy nodded, slow and painful though it was.

'How is she?'

Roy's voice sounded torn. He winced when it left his voice, hating to sound so weak when he needed every scrap of strength left to him. Ed didn't appear to care. He only shook his head.

'She's still sleeping,' Ed said. 'Tossing and turning. When Al and I checked, her eyes –' he paused, and Roy closed his own. 'Roy.'

Roy made a concerted effort to ignore Ed's voice. He hadn't known if Ed had known about the eyes, but from his words, that was a given. For a moment, Roy had been able to pretend it wasn't that, that whatever had happened hadn't happened to Sophie, but...

' _Roy._ '

Ed's voice was so close, so _heated,_ that Roy couldn't resist – he opened his eyes, and Ed was just... there.

Heat rolled off of him, Roy imagined dizzily, his eyes molten, his skin like magma. And why was he touching him? Roy opened his mouth to ask, dazed and uncertain, but Ed had kissed him, and it felt like fire had been poured through his veins, burning out the tired chill.

There was a hunger that was both foreign and entirely his own that compelled Roy to sit up, ignoring the creak and moan of tired muscles, and gather Ed to him with a tenderness he had never thought would be a part of this – whatever _this_ was. Ed followed, clambering up onto the bed and entangling himself fully, fingers laced irretrievably in his hair, mouth like a brand on Roy's.

'I'm so sorry,' Ed was mouthing, over and over, and there was something wet on Roy's cheek. It burned like salt on a cut.

'For what, Ed?' he whispered back, the forge of Ed's warmth rolling over him and soothing his muscles, and he reclined. Ed followed, body easily fitting alongside Roy's, until he was literally lying atop him; even the automail didn't feel heavy. It was, in fact, comforting to have Ed's weight pin him to the bed, an anchor to this world, a way to escape the strangeness. A warmth. Who knew that someone could be this warm? Roy drank in the heat like a starving man, letting it defrost his skin, his bones, his soul.

'For everything,' Ed murmured, propping himself up on his elbows, nipping at the corner of Roy's jaw. ' _Everything_. This all happened – I am so, so selfish – I'm so sorry, Roy,' he said, and nuzzled at Roy's throat. 'So sorry,' he repeated, and kissed Roy again.

Everything about Roy was on fire, and he kissed back, relishing the flames.

* * *

Ed didn't know what he was doing. He was trying to remember that he had come in here to check in on Roy, and to discuss whatever was 'possessing' him and Sophie, and to try and fix all this.

Ed had felt overheated since Roy had collapsed in the morning – like a volcano bulged before it exploded, he felt a pyroplast building in his bones, aching with the force he used to keep it in control. The way Roy had spoken had only fed into the mess that was his soul, angrily red and orange, consuming him. He felt like he was shaking the rest of the day – trying to explain to Winry, consoling Anda and Liam, trading frantic glances with Al.

Trying to keep from breaking down.

But Roy had been lying there, so _broken_ , and Ed's stomach had been tight and raw and _hot_ , endlessly hot, a cauldron boiling over; and when Roy had closed his eyes – Ed had given in.

And now coolness swept through his body, making him shiver uncontrollably; it was so welcome, so wanted, that Ed couldn't stop running his lips over Roy's skin, trying to siphon the cold off into himself. And there was _so much of it_ – the longer he touched Roy, the longer Roy touched _him_ (oh, if only his teenage self could see them now), the better he felt, the closer to being himself.

'Ed –' Roy was muttering, over and over; Ed was sure he didn't even know he was doing it. It felt like raindrops on his skin – he gave a full body shudder at the sound and kissed Roy again.

His lips were cool, and Ed ran his tongue over the seam; the inside of Roy's mouth was only marginally warmer, and it felt like a cool glass of water – no, like a river, as Roy responded powerfully, tongue sliding past Ed's and drowning his mouth in spiral movements and caresses.

Ed was shaking again, he could feel it, and Roy lifted his arms and rubbed at his shoulders. That only made the shaking worse, though, because the cool, dry sensation of his palms was killing Ed slowly; Roy pulled away, and Ed hadn't known he needed to see that Roy's eyes were as dark as midnight skies, but they were.

'You don't have to do this,' Roy said in a soft voice.

Ed blinked, then realised what the shaking could come across as. 'No, you idiot,' Ed said, and there was so much affection in his voice that he surprised himself. Roy closed his eyes again and tilted his head back, as if he was drinking in the noise, and Ed felt such an up-welling of warmth that he had no choice. He growled, just a little, and bit Roy gently on the throat.

Roy moaned softly, just barely audible, and his hips rose without his permission, the erection that had been building since Ed brushing against a similar hardness above him.

As if the noise that had escaped his throat had been some kind of permission, Ed made the growling noise again (that sound was going to burn the heart out of Roy) and dropped his hips down, the weight warm as a furnace against him.

Roy choked, louder than he had been speaking – or at least, he tried to, but Ed dropped his mouth atop his, too, keeping the sound for himself. The burning eyes dared Roy to do anything about it.

Roy ground up in answer, body thrilling at the contact. It was so – different. Ed's body was hard and endlessly warm, unlike Elena's cool softness. Roy craved it.

They rocked roughly together, mouths locked, trading sounds like secrets. Ed bit Roy's lip so hard it bled; Roy gripped Ed's shoulders so tightly he could tell there would be bruises. And all the while, it felt like life was touching him for the first time – like after years in the cold, he was finally, _finally_ warm.

He came, and it was the best feeling in the world.

* * *

Ed collapsed against Roy, teeth clacking together clumsily; he didn't care. He was finally comfortable in his own skin, finally felt like he could exist without burning up into cinders. The tide had come, swept him away, and deposited him _here_ ,safe and calm and blessedly cool.

Roy mouthed absently at Ed's jawline as they got their breath back, and soon, Ed could hear the sounds of the house again. It was like Roy had deafened him to everything outside the horizon of his body; Ed's kiss grazed Roy's cheekbone, and Roy smiled at him.

'We need to talk,' Ed said, hating himself for saying it. He just wanted to lie here forever and never move; but something was putting Roy and Sophie in danger, and that was more important than anything Ed wanted. His selfishness had caused everything; his hard work would fix it.

Roy's eyes hardened with determination. 'Yes,' he said calmly, and the fingers that traced lines on Ed's skin were gentle. 'We do.'

* * *

 


End file.
